[6] One person who helped build the new $1.5 million Meeker Avenue Bridge was John Kelly, a former Navy deep-sea diver from Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

This enabled workmen to operate and build an underwater pier in dry surroundings on the Brooklyn side of the new bridge.

After that, Kelly began cutting away cofferdam bracings on the Queens side, at Laurel Hill Boulevard and Review Avenue.

One of the tools he worked with was an underwater-operated cutting torch that burned oxygen, hydrogen, and compressed air.

The new bridge carried two three-lane concrete roadways each 32 feet (9.8 m) wide and separated by a 4-foot (1.2 m) median, as well as sidewalks.

This new bridge structure contained 16,315 short tons (14,801 t) of steel, along with 88,120 cubic yards (67,370 m3) of concrete masonry.

[4] The city government officially renamed the new bridge after Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish general in the American Revolutionary War, on July 10, 1940.

[9] On September 22, 1940, months after the conquest of Poland, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia led a renaming ceremony.

[9] The mayor described President Franklin D. Roosevelt, like Kościuszko, as a "champion of liberty during a difficult period", referring to the World War II occupation of Poland by Germany.

[18] All of these projects were completed in 1967, and also included the installation of a median barrier, replacement of the concrete deck, and other miscellaneous improvements.

[15] The 1939 bridge, which was meant to serve 10,000 vehicles per day, carried 18 times that amount of traffic when it became part of the Interstate Highway System.

King felt that in order to resolve the increasing number of severely congested streets and intersections, "a second parallel span" may be the answer.

[26] On May 23, 2014, a $554.77 million design-build contract, for the construction of the eastbound span and demolition of the old bridge was awarded to a team consisting of Skanska, which will be managing partner; Ecco III of Yonkers; Kiewit Corporation of Nebraska; and HNTB of Kansas as the lead design firm.

[34] The new eastbound bridge, which initially hosted both directions of traffic,[35] opened ahead of schedule[36] on April 27, 2017,[24] with a ceremony attended by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

[34] Part of the original structure was set to be demolished by controlled explosion in summer 2017[38] so that work on the new westbound bridge could begin soon after.

[51][52] The westbound bridge opened as scheduled on that date,[53] though pedestrians and bicyclists were allowed to cross the day before.

[54][55] As part of the construction of the westbound span, it was announced that a 7-acre (2.8 ha) park would be built in the unused space beneath the Brooklyn approach, and would open in 2020.

[57] In 2008, it was discovered that two Native American tribes indigenous to Queens, the Matinecocks and the Canarsies, were not informed of the bridge replacement project under federal law.

The Delaware Nation, in Oklahoma, and the Stockbridge-Munsee, in Wisconsin, both originally native to New York City, were given a month to comment on the bridge project, in addition to the Matinecocks and the Canarsies.

[55] The city planned to install short, on-street bike lanes leading to both ends of the bridge.

In response, comptroller Scott Stringer said that there needed to be "protected bike lanes", completely segregated from traffic, on both sides of the bridge.