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Restoration Work On Longfellow Bridge's 'Salt And Pepper' Towers Nears Completion

BOSTON (CBS) -- The work being done on the towers on the Longfellow Bridge--the ones that give it the "Salt and Pepper bridge" nickname--is almost finished.

All four 58-foot-tall towers have been washed and cleaned, piece by piece. Over 2,000 stones were taken apart to be cleaned before being put back together.

"We would take them down, we would number them, we would put them on a barge, send them up to Charlestown, clean them, bring them back in the order that we need them, and put them back up," said Walter Heller, MassDOT's Acting District Highway Director for the district including Boston.

The fully-restored towers should be back in place by the end of July. The work on the iconic structures began two years ago.

"When you look from the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge downstream and you see the Longfellow and the Zakim, I would say that's probably one of the most iconic scenes or structures in Boston," said Heller.

The work is part of the larger Longfellow Bridge restoration project, which is scheduled to be finished by fall 2018.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports

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