It Was Hot and Sticky

July heat causes oldfashioned troubles for the Third Avenue Bridge.

- Christopher Bonanos

The Third Avenue Bridge, the span that swings open and shut over the Harlem River near 128th Street, carries about 50,000 vehicles a day. On July 8, as the temperature reached 95 degrees, it didn’t. The bridge opened to let a barge through, its steel expanded in the heat, and at 2:46 p.m., it got stuck as the operators tried to close it. It took four hours and a pair of fireboats spraying cooling water on the trusses before it could pivot back to its normal position.

Two familiar phrases inevitably leapt to mind: global warming and