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Historic Rotterdam bridge won't be dismantled for Jeff Bezos superyacht
- mathgladiator 4y agoThis 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.
- stantaylor 4y agoAccording to the article, Rotterdamers don't want a new bridge. This bridge has historical and sentimental value to them.
- korijn 4y agoIt was recently renovated.
- vineyardmike 4y agoAccording to the article, the bridge is retired and is simply preserved as a monument.
- roywashere 4y agoThe bridge is no longer functional; it used to be a railway bridge but this has been replaced by a tunnel.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:Koninginnebrug_en_De_Hef.jpg https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Hef#/media/Bestand:Koningin...
- influx 4y agoThanks 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.
- floatinglotus 4y agoInstead Bezos will simply dismantle Rotterdam itself.
- allears 4y agoGood. All too often wealth = entitlement. It's good to see that money can't buy everything.
- ASalazarMX 4y agoYeah, what a cunt! The people sure taught him a lesson. <Suddenly remembers Amazon accounted for 40% of all online shopping just in USA>
- pawsforthought 4y agoAgreed. 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.
- mwint 4y agoLet’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.
- Clent 4y agoWhat about a charity makes it magically better?
- mwint 4y agoGovernment 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”
- pawsforthought 4y ago
- impjohn 4y agoWhy not dismantle the yacht instead
- ncmncm 4y agoSink it, even. Or build another one on the other side. He can afford it.
- quantified 4y agoFleet of drones can deliver it.
- pengaru 4y agoSeems 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.
- qq66 4y ago
- pennaMan 4y ago> 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!
- ALittleLight 4y agoSeems 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?
- corrral 4y agoIs 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.
- googlryas 4y agoIt's not in use.
- corrral 4y agoOh, well then, seems fine. Weird.
- googlryas 4y agoIt'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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- memen 4y agoIt 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.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThis is why big things are made in Asia now. They will raze cities to build stuff for powerful leaders.
- julienb_sea 4y agoThis 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.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago> 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXD_4Ghwz4g [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnmEQfu59t4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnmEQfu59t4