The landmark Sydney Harbour Bridge is to get its first makeover in 81 years with a new paint job that will take two years to complete, the New South Wales state government has said.
The iconic bridge, which spans the central and northern parts of the city, will be sanded back to bare steel and repainted using a lead-free paint that is fade-resistant
The bridge, which was once the world's widest long-span bridge, at 48.8 meters (160 feet) wide, carries vehicles along the the Bradfield Highway and is about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) long.
It takes around 30,000 litres of paint for just one coat on the Harbour Bridge, which is nicknamed 'The Coathanger', and huge sections of the bridge have suffered from heavy rust and erosion.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge, fondly known as the coathanger. Now eighty years old the Bridge has become a symbol of Sydney and of Australia, its arch shaped structure adding definition to the beautiful harbour and inspiring songs, artworks, photographs and poems like this one by Dorothy Auchterlonie’s (Green) 1940 poem Kaleidoscope:
Twinkle Twinkle little stars
On a million motor- cars
Along the Harbour Bridge so high
Like a coat-hanger in the sky
When the Bridge was formally opened on Saturday, 19 March 1932 the ceremony went awry. Labor Premier of New South Wales, Jack Lang was about to open the bridge by cutting a ribbon at its southern end. As Lang was about to cut the ribbon, a man in military uniform rode in on a horse, slashing the ribbon with his sword and opening the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the name of the people of New South Wales before the official ceremony began. He was promptly arrested.
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