By Neal Buccino, Media Relations Staff

One era ends, another begins.

At 10 p.m. Friday, the old Goethals Bridge closed for good after 89 years. Just 18 hours later its replacement opened to Staten Island-bound traffic and, by 12:20 p.m. Sunday, the new Goethals bridge also was carrying traffic to Elizabeth.

The diversion of drivers from the old to new span over the course of a momentous weekend is captured in this time-lapse video, produced by the Port Authority’s Mike Dombrowski:

A second time lapse-video charts construction of the bridge’s eastbound span with its 272-foot, V-shaped towers rising rapidly from the earth, the installation of its 450-foot-long stay cables and the moment the two sides of the roadway finally meet in the middle.

While the new span took slightly more than three years to build, its creation unfolds in just over a minute in this video, also produced by Dombrowski:

The original, cantilevered truss bridge is on the right. The twin spans of its replacement, a cable stayed bridge, stand right next door. Today, only one of those structures carries traffic. The second will open next year, after which the new Goethals Bridge will be nearly three times as wide as its predecessor.

The new Goethals represents a new era in bridge building. Funded and built through an innovative public-private partnership that is the region’s first of its kind — and embodying a 21^st-century union of elegance and strength — it will leave its distinctive mark for generations to come.