Behind the Lens at the New NY Bridge Project

BY JANIE ROSMAN

If you’re like I am, then you’re checking out the magnificent Hudson River sunrises and sunsets courtesy of the EarthCam® construction cameras strategically located at the New NY Bridge project site.

Tappan Zee Constructors, LLC (TZC) hired the Hackensack, New Jersey-based, webcam technology company to stream the five-year project, satisfying and sparking public interest and curiosity. The first of five cameras was installed last September (2013), offering panoramic and marina views of the bridge at 15-minute intervals, current project information and an interactive archive calendar.

Stokes Creative Group, Inc., TZC’s DBE public involvement consultant, worked with the Thruway team to identify each location and install the cameras,” TZC spokeswoman Carla Julian said. “They were chosen to provide the best views for project construction progress.”

The most recently-added Westchester webcam offers views of the toll plaza, maintenance facility site and abutment. Julian said there are no plans for additional cameras. Images stored remotely in a secure server by EarthCam® can be accessed via the New NY Bridge website.

Each camera takes 9.0 Megapixel images (3456 x 2592 pixels), (1/1.7″ 15.0 Megapixel CCD) from s 2.8 Lens: F/2.8-F/4.5, with a motorized zoom of 28mm-140mm and a 200% zoom range.

“Typically, images are captured and stored only one per hour,” Julian explained. “The project team chose to configure these cameras to take one image every 15 minutes to allow the public to see even more of the work that is progressing,” Julian explained

That interval “was determined to be the proper time that would allow the camera to capture an image and upload it to the server,” she said.

So you see the best quality picture of the progress to email, save, or post via Twitter or Facebook.

“The web cameras continue to be the most popular section of the website attracting hundreds of visitors each week,” Julian said. “It is estimated that by the end of the project almost 700,000 images will have been collected.”

You know the video “Project Year 2014 in Two Minutes” that’s popular with the public and with educational outreach presentations?

The video shows TZC’s armada of floating cranes and hundreds of workers installing nearly two-thirds of the new bridge’s foundation piles during the first 12 months of construction.

It’s an example of the webcams’ other goal “to create time-lapse video programs that show the new bridge rise out of the Hudson in a few short minutes,” she said.

All five — in Rockland (Upper Grandview), on the bridge’s main span, at the Tarrytown Marina, in Tarrytown and at the Westchester landing — will remain positioned through the project’s completion.

Which are your favorite EarthCam® views?

This article appeared in the Rockland County Times February 12, 2015.