Her lobbying efforts inspired the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which maintains the Bayonne Bridge - the fourth longest steel arch bridge in the world.
After seven years, the historic span that connects Bayonne, New Jersey, with Staten Island, New York, was decorated with red, white and blue LED lights custom designed by LEDtronics, Inc. of Torrance, California.
"When we initially showed the bridge maintenance group the LEDtronics 180-degree fixture that is used on the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles Harbor, they liked the concept but needed the light to be 360 degrees and in red, white and blue," says Jeffrey Mizel of RF Industries East, the representatives involved with the project.
"As they also wanted to use the existing fixtures, we were provided with samples from the bridge, and LEDtronics engineers set about designing a BSD-1928-OPB-004 - a retrofit, mogul-base, 360-degree design," adds Jeffrey.
It was a perfect solution. In 2009 the project was completed, and the 1,675ft of the main arch span was illuminated with patriotic LED lighting using about 14 each of BSD-1928-OER-004 (red), BSD-1928-TPW-004 (white) and BSD-1928-OPB-004 (blue). Veronica Granite, now a teenager, was inspired with what she saw.
Other than the Bayonne and the Vincent Thomas bridges, the LEDtronics BSD-1928-001 series of lights are also installed on the South Capitol Street Bridge in Washington, D.C.
There still remain two other bridges to be retrofitted, as soon as a method for using 440 volts to power the LEDs is accommodated, says the company.
(Claire Beeson)
