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Talk about click-bait. It’ll be taken down and put back up over the course of one or two days.

iso1631 5y ago
It previously went through a major renovation which saw it out of action from 2014 to 2017, when officials said it would not be dismantled again. 5 years later it will be
- gambiting 5y ago
  >>, when officials said it would not be dismantled again. Well, then they either shouldn't have made such a promise, or you know, actually should have kept it and denied the permission for this. Or maybe dismantling the bridge for literally 2 days and putting it back together really isn't such a huge deal as people are trying to make it out to be.
bennyelv 5y ago
Also it doesn't really have that much to do with Bezos himself, it's the business of the shipyard that's building his boat. They will have tendered for the contract to build the boat and that would have considered the need to get it past the bridge.
gambiting 5y ago
Also I see so many people getting upset at Bezos over this for some reason, and I really don't understand why(you know, other than hating him for all the general billionaire-level things). The company building the yacht is governed by local laws and they got the permission to do this, not Bezos. Local city council agreed to do this, not Bezos. If a company approached a city council saying "hey we're building this huge thing, to move it out we need to temporarily dismantle a bridge for two days, we will pay 100% of the costs associated with the work".....I don't see how that's unreasonable? I think maybe people assume that the bridge is being destroyed in the process? It really isn't.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  It's also entirely legal to pay someone to lick your boots clean, but I would still consider a person vile that did that. I don't know to what extent any original parts of the bridge will get replaced etc, but even if it is 100% restored it sends a pretty disgusting message, that there are private individuals that are so powerful that they can literally have city infrastructure dismantled for their pleasure. Even if it doesn't cost the city a cent, it still very clearly establishes who's in charge.
  - bennyelv 5y ago
    That's a strange lens to put on it. Bezos wants a ship built, and a range of shipyards around the world tendered for it. This one won the tender, and they knew that they'd have to dismantle the bridge to get the ship out, and would have got permission to do it before tendering. The people who decided on whether to give permission or not would have looked at the economic value being added by having the shipyard win the contract, and the heritage cost of temporarily dismantling the bridge. I imagine that the shipyard and the city have decided that the value of them being able to build bigger ships in their yard outweighs that. It really doesn't have much to do with Bezos at all.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      I didn't even mention Bezos. My point is that it's a bad look for everyone involved, regardless of the legality or financial considerations. It says "anything is for sale". Which of course is exactly what America is all about, but I don't have to like it. If Bezos wants to celebrate a Hawaii themed birthday at Versailles I'm sure he could bribe/pay the city to close it for the public for a week and fill it with tiki heads and palm trees, and it would make financial sense and be perfectly legal. But it would still be degrading for the French people. Not saying this is quite that bad, but it's the same idea. Money should not be the only consideration.
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Right, but business and public spheres interact all the time, in all kinds of ways. Say you're building a massive factory and request a road closure for a while, so that parts necessary to run your business can arrive - it inconveniences a lot of people who use that road daily. For another example - film crews ask for location closures for filming all the time, it's hardly exclusive to US - you ask if you can shut down a major street in a big city for an hour, and usually the request is granted, just so you can make some money on a film or whatever. It's clearly a trade-off between the public and the business sphere, right? For the most straightforward example - there are bridges in Rotterdam that open up to let the ships pass. So let's say you are driving to work, but have to wait 30 minutes because some asshole is sailing his shop across the canal to make money. Everything is for sale, right? Of course this is an extreme example, but I really don't see those things as that different. The yacht building company wants to make a sale, so they requested that the bridge be dismantled temporarily to finish that sale. That doesn't mean everything is for sale - more that everything has a price. That's not the same thing. I also find it really amusing that random people across the internet really care about some random bridge in Rotterdam - things like that happen daily and all the time, just not to complete a sale of a yacht, so no one really writes about them.

It previously went through a major renovation which saw it out of action from 2014 to 2017, when officials said it would not be dismantled again. 5 years later it will be

gambiting 5y ago
>>, when officials said it would not be dismantled again. Well, then they either shouldn't have made such a promise, or you know, actually should have kept it and denied the permission for this. Or maybe dismantling the bridge for literally 2 days and putting it back together really isn't such a huge deal as people are trying to make it out to be.

bennyelv 5y ago

Also it doesn't really have that much to do with Bezos himself, it's the business of the shipyard that's building his boat. They will have tendered for the contract to build the boat and that would have considered the need to get it past the bridge.

gambiting 5y ago

Also I see so many people getting upset at Bezos over this for some reason, and I really don't understand why(you know, other than hating him for all the general billionaire-level things). The company building the yacht is governed by local laws and they got the permission to do this, not Bezos. Local city council agreed to do this, not Bezos. If a company approached a city council saying "hey we're building this huge thing, to move it out we need to temporarily dismantle a bridge for two days, we will pay 100% of the costs associated with the work".....I don't see how that's unreasonable? I think maybe people assume that the bridge is being destroyed in the process? It really isn't.

Grustaf 5y ago
It's also entirely legal to pay someone to lick your boots clean, but I would still consider a person vile that did that. I don't know to what extent any original parts of the bridge will get replaced etc, but even if it is 100% restored it sends a pretty disgusting message, that there are private individuals that are so powerful that they can literally have city infrastructure dismantled for their pleasure. Even if it doesn't cost the city a cent, it still very clearly establishes who's in charge.
- bennyelv 5y ago
  That's a strange lens to put on it. Bezos wants a ship built, and a range of shipyards around the world tendered for it. This one won the tender, and they knew that they'd have to dismantle the bridge to get the ship out, and would have got permission to do it before tendering. The people who decided on whether to give permission or not would have looked at the economic value being added by having the shipyard win the contract, and the heritage cost of temporarily dismantling the bridge. I imagine that the shipyard and the city have decided that the value of them being able to build bigger ships in their yard outweighs that. It really doesn't have much to do with Bezos at all.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    I didn't even mention Bezos. My point is that it's a bad look for everyone involved, regardless of the legality or financial considerations. It says "anything is for sale". Which of course is exactly what America is all about, but I don't have to like it. If Bezos wants to celebrate a Hawaii themed birthday at Versailles I'm sure he could bribe/pay the city to close it for the public for a week and fill it with tiki heads and palm trees, and it would make financial sense and be perfectly legal. But it would still be degrading for the French people. Not saying this is quite that bad, but it's the same idea. Money should not be the only consideration.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      Right, but business and public spheres interact all the time, in all kinds of ways. Say you're building a massive factory and request a road closure for a while, so that parts necessary to run your business can arrive - it inconveniences a lot of people who use that road daily. For another example - film crews ask for location closures for filming all the time, it's hardly exclusive to US - you ask if you can shut down a major street in a big city for an hour, and usually the request is granted, just so you can make some money on a film or whatever. It's clearly a trade-off between the public and the business sphere, right? For the most straightforward example - there are bridges in Rotterdam that open up to let the ships pass. So let's say you are driving to work, but have to wait 30 minutes because some asshole is sailing his shop across the canal to make money. Everything is for sale, right? Of course this is an extreme example, but I really don't see those things as that different. The yacht building company wants to make a sale, so they requested that the bridge be dismantled temporarily to finish that sale. That doesn't mean everything is for sale - more that everything has a price. That's not the same thing. I also find it really amusing that random people across the internet really care about some random bridge in Rotterdam - things like that happen daily and all the time, just not to complete a sale of a yacht, so no one really writes about them.