Grandpa's Bridge

Junior's Grandpa Lorenzo worked for the State Highway Department for many years. In 1949 or so he was struck by a truck while clearing snow from a State highway. His injury hospitaized him for more than forty days. The resulting disability caused his superiors at the Highway Department to refer him for early retirement. Grandpa Lorenzo did not, however, think himself ready to retire to the cultivation of his backyard tomato garden. (Junior reports that his family is genetically predisposed to workaholism.) As such, he turned for help to the local legislator that got him his job with the State in the first place. That spirited public servant influenced the Department to have Grandpa assigned to a less physically demanding position as a bridge operator. Consequently, Grandpa Lorenzo became the operator assigned to the William J. Stickel Memorial Bridge in Newark.

The William J. Stickel Memorial Bridge is a multilane vertical lift bridge that spans the Passaic River between Newark and the Town of Harrison. The 125 foot long bridge is named after a one-time Essex County engineer. It opened for traffic in 1949. The Stickel Bridge is one of the few movable bridges within the Interstate Highway system. At the present time it rarely opens and is considered obsolete.

The bridge was more vital when Junior's Grandpa worked on it more than forty years ago. Junior can recall driving to the bridge with his Dad to bring Grandpa a boxed dinner because he was going to work a second shift that day. Junior would have been no more than 6 or 7 at the time. Climbing the steel stairway to the bridge operator's perch seemed to the infant Junior as if he were climbing to the top of the Empire State Building. From his Grandfather's window atop the bridge, Junior could see the grey-green Passaic River far below flowing into the Newark Bay.

Junior is aware that the State DOT has redesign plans for the highway system in and around the Stickel Bridge. He does not know whether the plans call for utilizing the bridge in some manner or demolishing it.