How Many People Does it Take to Screw in a Lightbulb on the Brooklyn Bridge?
Like the GWB and the Holland Tunnel, the Brooklyn Bridge will have LED lights installed next year, but how exactly do the bulbs get replaced? The NY Times says it only takes one man to screw in these bulbs. Okay, maybe he has some help. Ben Cipriano, the leader of a crew of electricians who maintain the four major East River Bridges for the city’s Department of Transportation, and his colleagues make about a dozen trips a year up the cables of those bridges.The mercury vapor lamps that are currently in use on the bridge, he said, are supposed to last about 24,000 hours. At eight hours a night (the lights are turned off at 1 a.m.), that means each bulb should last more than eight years. It gets tricky, though, because workers replace the bulbs before they burn out completely, to minimize noticeable variations between them.With the new 24-watt LED lights being installed, Cipriano and Co. will have to make less trips up the cables, since they last three times longer. The Times has some in
