Historic Rotterdam bridge won't be dismantled for Jeff Bezos superyacht | Hacker News Reader

Historic Rotterdam bridge won't be dismantled for Jeff Bezos superyacht

nltimes.nl

42 pointsfirstSpeaker32 comments

Seems like much ado about nothing to me. They were going to dissemble the bridge to sail the yacht through then reassemble it at Bezos's expense. Reading the Wikipedia page on this it looks like they took the bridge down as recently as 2015 for some renovations, so it's not like taking the bridge down is some unthinkable or unprecedented thing either. Why was this a problem?

Is the bridge not in use? If it is in use, seems ridiculous to remove access, even temporarily, to a public resource, just because one rich guy is bad at planning and/or extremely arrogant.

It's not in use.

Oh, well then, seems fine. Weird.

It's entirely a "I hate Bezos so everything he does is bad". Weird how the citizens of Rotterdam had no issue with Bezos pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into their shipyard, but only got upset when they realized he would have to get his ship out somehow.

On top of all this, the bridge was dismantled 5 years ago for a renovation...it's not like it has never been done before.

It is not like the citizens of Rotterdam are involved in this shipyards business. The shipyard is not even in Rotterdam (Alblasserdam), but its ships have to go to sea. Also, the dutch shipyarding business is quite secretive about the actual buyer, partly due to the controverse that may arise.

On top of that, 'De Hef' is one of the most iconic historic bridges in the Netherlands and especially for the citizens of Rotterdam.

Alblasserdam is 20km from Rotterdam, to someone not familiar with the legal boundaries, it would probably appear to be all part of the same conurbation/metropolitan area. I'm sure many of the shipbuilders are living or at least spending their Bezos money in Rotterdam.

Sure it is an iconic bridge...so what though? it's not like they were just going to dismantle it and leave it on the ground.

> the three-masted ship cannot fit under the Koningshaven Bridge

Videos of the ship [1] and [2]. The second especially shows that the issue is that the shipyard wants to install the masts inland of the bridge rather than on the ocean side of it. There must be something special about them then, because every harbor in the world has access to cranes that can be used to install and remove masts. Which makes sense, because this ship is going to need to be serviced and/or repaired basically anywhere on earth.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXD_4Ghwz4g

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnmEQfu59t4

> It also remarked on the city's status as a European leader in shipbuilding.

This stood out as painfuly ironic: The shibuilding status symbol is preventing a whole tier of shipbuilding!

This is basically self sabotage. Building the yacht in Rotterdam, as opposed to a shipyard elsewhere, is good for the local businesses that are a part of the ship's development, and helps solidify the reputation of Rotterdam for future such projects. They will get built regardless, just probably elsewhere. There's also no reason to believe that removing the top of the bridge is going to have any impact to it whatsoever.

Seems like a missed opportunity to make Bezos foot the bill for a Rotterdam bridge restoration and ongoing maintenance.

Dude has unlimited money, demand enough money to fix up your bridge better-than-before and buy everyone a pint.

Why not dismantle the yacht instead

Sink it, even.

Or build another one on the other side. He can afford it.

Fleet of drones can deliver it.

Good. All too often wealth = entitlement. It's good to see that money can't buy everything.

Let’s test that… say Bezos really wanted the bridge gone. If Bezos were to pay $100B, half to the government and half to your favorite charity, would you say that’s a good deal?

10B? 1B?

Money doesn’t buy everything, but being too principled about that can harm causes you care about.

What about a charity makes it magically better?

Government welfare funding, whatever. I’m only trying to illustrate that a billionaire throwing vast amounts of money at a nominally evil thing they want, can easily be offset by society redirecting that money to something “good”.

It’s better to work with the billionaire and harvest their billions for good, than to say “no, you cannot do this thing, ever, for any compensation”

The pragmatist in me says you make a good point. The idealist in me shrivels in disgust nevertheless.

I've dealt with large scale projects/equipment before. Most people don't realize that request like this are common. It's not entitlement, just social media and ignorance that added to the sensationalism (as the article pointed out). That's why the shipbuilder is "blindsided by the social unrest the plans caused". People sleeping in their cozy bed at 3am don't see massive equipment that rolls down main street, with traffic lights, power lines etc all moved out of the way. Google "Airbus A380 wing transportation"... actually here's a link: https://www.cnet.com/pictures/following-an-a380-through-rura...

Here is another link: "In the Canadian capital, Ottawa, we removed the old Lees Avenue bridge and replaced it with a new 87.5-meter prefabricated bridge weighing over 2,000 tons. Through careful planning and with three months preparation time, the bridge replacement was completed in one, safe overnight operation"

https://www.mammoet.com/heavy-transport/

The shipyard should really stop saying they can build ships of a certain size then. And they should stop taking on projects that they can't actually deliver on.

Yeah, what a cunt! The people sure taught him a lesson.

Agreed.

Furthermore, I say billionaires need publicly shaming for such material extravagances. These superyachts are, quite frankly, an utterly irresponsible use of our shared and finite planetary resources.

This feels like a missed opportunity for revenue due to misguided protestors for a utility. At some point, the bridge will need to be replaced and the city leadership could have gotten a new bridge on Bezos's dime.

According to the article, Rotterdamers don't want a new bridge. This bridge has historical and sentimental value to them.

It was recently renovated.

According to the article, the bridge is retired and is simply preserved as a monument.

The bridge is no longer functional; it used to be a railway bridge but this has been replaced by a tunnel. There are still rails on the bridge but they go nowhere. The bridge is kept purely as a landmark and for historical interest. See for an overview picture https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Hef#/media/Bestand:Koningin...

Thanks for your picture, I was way more outraged about this before seeing it. Seems relatively easy and safe to remove the top part of a bridge that is unused, and was built in 1927. I was imagining a stone bridge built in the 1600s that was in daily use.

Instead Bezos will simply dismantle Rotterdam itself.

This is why big things are made in Asia now. They will raze cities to build stuff for powerful leaders.

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