Tim Piquette is one of four bridge operators at the Beades drawbridge on Morrissey Boulevard. The Dorchester man has been at his post for 20 years. Photo by Bill Forry

By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

It's getting towards noontime and Tim Piquette is heating up Sunday brunch in the toaster oven at 500 Morrissey Boulevard, the seldom-heard address for the Beades Bridge control house. With the transformers cranking underneath our feet in the "basement," there's enough juice running through the drawbridge to power a New York City block. But an old toaster oven is all Tim needs to heat up some of his favorite chicken wings. When Tim's relief shows up at 2:30, he too can feast on the bucket of BBQ wings chilling in the fridge, a five-foot contraption that's so old it probably predates the boulevard itself.

Just outside the window, the roadway buzzes - literally - with traffic that's steady but hardly heavy for this stretch of Dorchester asphalt, moving along at a good clip. Every time tires hit the gratework on the bridge, they generate a buzzing sound that Tim probably stopped hearing about five years into his 20-year career as the bridgemaster of Morrissey Boulevard.

It's the weekend after all, and it's low tide, too, so there's no need to hit the alarm, drop the barrier gates and grind local traffic to a halt. The 25-foot pleasure boats that are chugging underneath the John J, Beades Bridge from their berth at the Dorchester Yacht Club in Savin Hill Bay don't even bother calling up to Tim this morning. There's plenty of headroom for all but maybe two of the boats in the bay, and they're still docked. The lobsterman inching underneath right now is the least of Tim's worries.

In the afternoon, when they all come steaming back in high waters, that's when Tim or his replacement will get busy.

It's a bright, clear summer's day, so Tim will likely see them coming even before his Ship to Shore radio crackles with a request to 'open sesame.' These days, it's as likely that his cell phone will erupt with a call from a boatsman, looking for clearance.

"It's always their call," Tim says about whether or not the drawbridge will be opened. "The boaters are the judge of everything."

The original drawbridge connecting Dorchester and Savin Hill bays dates back to 1928, when the span was called the Dorchester Bay Bridge. When the roadway was expanded in 1954 to make room for more traffic, state engineers built the same kind of rolling lift bascule bridge that Tim Piquette and his three colleagues operate today in rotating shifts from April 15 to Columbus Day weekend.

In the last few years, the job has been relatively simple with just a few routine annoyances: Watching for jet skis, warding off the occasional dare-devil teenager trying to hurl himself into the waters from the bridge, and hoping to God that the next car hurtling down the exit ramp from the expressway notices when the bridge is up.

"It's always good when there's a few cars waiting at the gate, because the folks on the ramp see them stopped," Tim says.

Life has not always been so peaceful in the bridge house. For much of the 1990s, the Beades Bridge was the bane of the South Shore motoring public. A 1998 report on the bridge by the now-defunct Metropolitan District Commission noted that "severe operational deficiencies" of the span resulted in frequent "land and marine traffic disruptions." That was bureaucrat-speak for: "The damn bridge gets stuck in the upright position more often than not and I can't get home in time for the Ten O'Clock News."

In 1999, a disgusted State Rep. Marty Walsh, holding brittle flakes of the bridge in his hand during an inspection, told the Reporter he didn't want his parents to drive over the bridge "when it collapses."

The next year, the MDC finally launched a $1.2 million replacement project that itself was disruptive, but ended with a new bridge that never gets stuck and is no longer rusting into oblivion.

The new bridge came with a mammoth new control panel that Paquette and his mates dial, push and pedal to move the bridge up and down at will.

"They say it takes five minutes from start to finish, but it's not even that long," says Piquette.

Still, the lifelong Dorchester resident acknowledges that the bridge operators see their share of fist-shaking when they have to sound the horn and drop the gates across the road.

"You're probably not their best friend when they see this gate go down," Tim says. "One time, this guy jumped out of his car and accused us of dropping the bridge on purpose. He says, 'You guys opened it 'cause you saw me coming.'"

Besides a few fender-benders, Piquette says he's witnessed only one serious accident in his 20 years on the job. One early morning, as the bridge was going up, a car plowed through the gate, hurtled into the air and landed on the other side, wedging itself into the face of the bridge. The driver, whom Piquette says had fallen asleep at the wheel, suffered only minor injuries.

"I said, 'This guy must have God on his side." Turns out, he's a priest."

Piquette, who bicycles to work everyday from his home near Fields Corner, says his most memorable day in the bridge house was in 1991, during the now infamous "No Name" storm. The hurricane-force winds pulled down one of the four piers beneath the bridge, hurled several boats onto the nearby beaches and churned angry seawater just feet away from the control room's floorboards. Piquette rode the whole thing out from his waterfront perch.

"My boss called and said, 'Are you in fear of your life,' " Tim says. "I said, 'Not really.' I had a lot of fun that day."

Still, Piquette has made it clear to his family that he has no intention of skippering any fishing boats in his retirement.

"I told my daughter, I want a nice cabin, way out in the woods."

RELATED STORY
Bridge lessons: minding the ups and downs
For 18 hours of the day, six months of the year, somebody staffs a modest guardhouse atop the Granite Avenue drawbridge, waiting to lift the bridge for boaters traveling up and downstream. It might sound like slow work, but Charles Dineen, one of five part-time sentinels, has stored up more than a few interesting anecdotes after 13 years at the bridge's controls.