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March 17, 2011 - September 30, 2012


The economic livelihood of the maritime industry in New York Harbor—the containerships, tug companies, and shipyards— depends on clear passage down the Kill van Kull, one of the world's busiest waterways.

The advent of modern containership has necessitated raising the roadbed of the Bayonne Bridge because the huge ships cannot pass beneath it. The exhibition is an homage to the bridge as it is today by a group of contemporary artists including Bascove, Michael Falco, Dave "The Bridge Man" Frieder, Su-Li Hung, Brock Johnson, DB Lampman, Bill Murphy, Michael McWeeney, Michael Ruffo, and Vincent Verdi.

It is also an acknowledgement of the extraordinary engineer Othmar Ammann (1879-1965), who designed and built the bridge. His catalogue of New York City masterworks includes six bridges, the George Washington, the Triborough, the Throgs Neck, the Whitestone, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridges. The Bayonne Bridge is the only steel arch bridge in that catalogue, and one in which Ammann took particular pride.

The exhibition includes photographs and original materials about the construction of the bridge and a look at the bridge's future using documents from the Noble Maritime Collection's archive and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.