Atlantic Beach Bridge subject to closures beginning Wednesday night for maintenance

The Atlantic Beach Bridge, the 1,173-foot-long drawbridge spanning Reynolds Channel and connecting Atlantic Beach to Lawrence and the Rockaway Peninsula, will be subject to full closures — in 15-minute intervals — between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. through Friday, the Nassau County Bridge Authority said.

The closures will take place weather permitting and will involve what the NCBA described as routine maintenance on the bridge.

An NCBA administrator, Andrew Falco, said the maintenance work involves a gear adjustment on the operating mechanism for the bridge deck — and said it was originally slated for later this month. However, he said, when the maintenance company had an unexpected opening in its schedule the NCBA opted to move up the planned date. And, Falco said, there's a possibility the maintenance adjustments could be done during the course of one two-hour span of interruptions — though, he said, there's also a possibility the work could involve just one interruption to traffic.

Weather will be a factor. "Drizzle and periodic rain is fine when it comes to the work being done," Falco said. "But anything steady, that they can't work in."

The potential for thunderstorms is why the maintenance window runs through Friday, Falco said.

Falco said the approximate cost of the maintenance work is about $3,000.

With the window for the maintenance interruptions extending through Friday, officials are advising motorists, as well as emergency service agencies, to consider alternate routes.

The bridge opened in 1927, but as traffic volume increased steadily in ensuing years, Robert Moses, the controversial "master builder," urged the construction of a replacement span.

That project began in October 1950 when Gov. Thomas E. Dewey helped drive the first piling for the new span. The six-lane bridge, which has a 33-foot vertical clearance, was built at a cost of $9.5 million and opened to traffic on May 10, 1952.

By John Valenti

john.valenti@newsday.com

John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”