Kosciuszko Bridge

The Kosciuszko Bridge is the name of two bridges that span Newtown Creek between the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, connecting Greenpoint, Brooklyn and Maspeth, Queens. The older bridge, a truss bridge that opened in 1939, is no longer in use and its demolition began in July 2017. All traffic uses a newer cable-stayed bridge to the south, which opened in April 2017 and carries three lanes in each direction. The crossing is part of Interstate 278, which is also locally known as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway or BQE. The two bridges are the only bridges over Newtown Creek that are not drawbridges.The older truss bridge replaced a swing bridge called the Meeker Avenue Bridge, which connected Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn to Laurel Hill Boulevard in Queens. The old Kosciuszko Bridge, originally also called the Meeker Avenue Bridge carried six lanes of traffic, three in each direction. In 1940, a year after opening, the bridge was renamed after Polish military leader Tadeusz Kościuszko, who fought alongside the Americans in the American Revolutionary War.