No, this is not a light installation at a Bushwick warehouse rave. It’s Greenpoint’s newest bridge. The first three lanes of the new Kosciuszko Bridge opened to drivers last night, after a ribbon-cutting ceremony in which Governor Andrew Cuomo stunted around in FDR’s old Packard.
Yesterday morning, Cuomo promised the bridge would be illuminated with a magnificent LED light show. At night, he returned to the bridge to unveil the “New York Harbor of Lights.” The Queens native recalled how his father referred to the old Kosciuszko, with its notorious traffic jams and surrounding cemeteries, as Death Valley. “A year of my life was spent in traffic on the Kosciuszko,” Cuomo estimated.
That old bridge will now be deconstructed and hauled off on a barge, and the second span of the new Kosciuszko will be completed by 2020, Cuomo said.
The New York Harbor of Lights show, meanwhile, will be expanded to the George Washington, the Verrazano, the Throgs Neck and the Whitestone, making for a choreographed display that Cuomo believes will be a major tourist attraction.
Even if that doesn’t end up being the case, the Kosciuszko has already made a splash on Instagram.