Bridge tender Charlie Holbrook chats with Hengameh Omidi, a visitor from Iran (center),
and her friend Monika Damico of Delray Beach as they crossed the Atlantic Avenue Bridge on a recent afternoon.
Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
A plaque honoring the construction of the 63-year-old Atlantic Avenue Bridge.
By Lona O’Connor
A couple of years ago, on a trip to New York, Charlie Holbrook and his wife, Theresa, visited the Museum of Modern Art. He stopped to watch a grainy black-and-white filmstrip of hundred-year-old trains, steam-operated machinery and bridges opening and closing.
“Theresa went and looked at other stuff, but I sat there for a half an hour, mesmerized,” said Holbrook.
The Gaithersburg, Md., couple moved to Delray Beach last year, a lifelong dream of Holbrook, who had never forgotten when his family visited Miami Beach for his sixth birthday. Though born and raised in the Washington, D.C., area, he longed for a subtropical climate.
On a walk last winter, he spotted a small “help wanted” sign on the Atlantic Avenue Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway. The sign sought part-time bridge tenders.
“Retirees and seniors welcome to apply,” it said.
It was the perfect post-retirement job for the man fascinated by machinery.
A real estate agent who drove a mail truck at night, Holbrook was not bothered by the overnight shift he was first assigned to. Soon after, however, he moved to his current 2-10 p.m. slot. Below his compact office is a complex system of gears and counterweights that grind into action when he pushes a button.
After training sessions and working alongside an experienced bridge tender, Holbrook was ready for his first solo shift.
That, of course, had to be the day the bridge would not open.
“They tell you in training, ‘Don’t panic, just relax,’ ” said Holbrook. He called the bridge mechanics and radioed the sailboat captain waiting below for the bridge to open. They were able to fix the bridge in about 20 minutes.
To impatient boaters, cyclists, pedestrians and drivers, it may seem as if the bridge takes at least 20 minutes every time. To them, the bridge tender is a demigod, all-powerful, choosing arbitrarily to delay their progress to the beach or to work.
In fact, as Holbrook is quick to point out, the whole open-close cycle takes only six minutes, occurs only twice an hour, and then only if there are boats waiting. If the delay is any longer than that, it would be because a large number of boats has lined up to pass under the open bridge. That could be as many as 10 or so during the busy winter months, often including the Lady Atlantic and Lady Delray cruise boats.
Though small, the bridge tender’s working quarters suffice to his needs, with air conditioning, a bathroom, microwave and refrigerator, and an incomparable view of the Intracoastal Waterway.
In the summer, when boat traffic diminishes, he can listen to boaters and the other bridge tenders on the radio channel and keep bridge records up-to-date.
Once in a while, though, there are magical moments. He recalls his first glimpse of a massive dark shape lumbering north.
It was dark, about 9:30 p.m., when Holbrook got his first breathtaking nighttime view of a tug barge, the workhorse of the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic coastline.
Looking south toward the Linton Avenue bridge, Holbrook could see the lights that outlined the dark shape of the enormous barge slowly heading his way. He could hear the captain saying on the radio, “We require an opening,” as if any bridge tender would say no to a floating behemoth that was 75 yards long, 40 feet wide and transporting a 30-foot-long piece of piping so large a man could stand up fully inside it.
“It’s eerie to see it coming,” said Holbrook. Even with the bridge raised, a barge that size has about eight feet of clearance on either side as it goes under.
Though the bridge tender’s job includes plenty of solitude, it’s not necessarily lonely. Even though he has security cameras on his control panel, Holbrook must also emerge from his office and check the bridge for pedestrians before he raises the span. After just a few months on the job, he has now become a familiar figure to those who cross the bridge regularly.
“People wave and honk, I see friends of mine. I watch the waterway, the paddleboards going up and down. And it’s a thrill to see that bridge go up, every time.”
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