Long, Explosive Goodbye For Old Route 3 BridgeA series of blasts is what it will take to say goodbye once and for all to the old Route 3 bridge over the Passaic River connecting Clifton in Passaic County with Rutherford and Lyndhurst in Bergen County.

Controlled blasting will require a series of 15-minute stoppages on Route 3, Route 21, Riverside Avenue and Passaic River waterway over the next two weeks. The first two in a series of five blasting events took place last Thursday and Friday. According to the New Jersey Dept. of Transportation, the blasts, scheduled for between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., require a 15-minute window of traffic stoppage. Variable message signs will provide advance notification to motorists throughout the blasting area.

The contractor has not yet scheduled the subsequent three blasting events. NJDOT will provide notification in advance of each one. The precise timing of the work is subject to change due to weather, on-site job conditions or other factors, but you can check NJDOT’s traffic information website for construction updates and real-time travel information.

Wheeler Antabanez, a passionate friend of the Passaic River, captured the blasts on video.

https://youtu.be/klKulhcBPc8

More video at We Love The Passaic River

5 replies on “Long, Explosive Goodbye For Old Route 3 Bridge”

  2. BRILLIANT!!!!

    Remarkable to think that just a century ago, this was the site of a famous health resort….The Park Hotel…and thanks to pollution from the industrial revolution born upstream at Paterson, the beautiful Passaic River paradise became intoxicated and died. I am so grateful that Wheeler is documenting the present day Passaic River…. The great local poet William Carlos Williams had a similar fascination with the Passaic River. Williams wrote about it and even was involved in preservation efforts.

  4. I love that river..growing up I looked at it everyday from the window of our two story home…Fishing for carp, sneaking cigarettes , drinking beer, laying on a branch with my friends as a 12 year olds smoking cigars ( subsequently getting dizzy and falling in) or walking the banks finding old bottles , a lot of good times. I still have alot the old green beer bottles, milk bottles and little blue medicine bottles that I found over the years. One of my favorite is from the old Jacob Rupert Brewery, who onced owned the Yankees. I can still smell the river in my mind today…A nice trip for the kids, hit Libby’s and then take them to the Paterson Falls.

  5. Years ago, I had a friend who didn’t grow up around here and did not believe that people actually lived along the banks of the Passaic River in Fairfield and other towns, so I took her there to show her.

    Now, most of those homes have been abandoned and I believe the Army Corps of Engineers in working in the area. But we saw several homes on stilts and almost everyone in the area had a motorboat or rowboat. Putting aside the polluted river, the area is actually very beautiful, as recorded by Wheeler’s photos, and I took a few photos. One resident saw me doing so and got nervous, thinking I was from a gubmint agency. I reassured him I was not and just wanted to take photos of the area and he was OK with that. Said he lived in his house for many years and really didn’t want to leave.

    One thing I do remember vividly was how awful the mosquitoes were. And it’s probably worse now after all the hurricane activity in recent years.

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