When Tom Shepherd, a chief inspector on the Brooklyn Bridge rehab project, left for work yesterday, he told his wife he might be meeting later with Vice President Joe Biden, so “I’ll tell Joe you said hello.”
What Shepherd could never have imagined was that his flippant joke would be become reality a few hours later.
Not only did Shepherd get to chat with the VP, but when he mentioned the earlier conversation with his wife, Biden suggested he call her right then and there on his cellphone.
When Betty Shepherd answered at her office, the next voice she heard was that of the vice president of the United States.
“I’m Vice President Joe Biden. I’m here to make sure your husband isn’t messing up the bridge,” she recalled Biden saying.
“I was shocked. If he didn’t have such a distinctive voice, I would have thought Tom was messing with me.”
Shepherd, 44, called it fitting that his once-in-a-lifetime encounter with a vice president happened at the Brooklyn Bridge.
“I think it was third or sixth grade when a teacher showed us a picture of them building the bridge,” he said. “I was just amazed by that. It’s been a lifelong dream to work on the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Shepherd got the chance when the city began a $508 million rehabilitation of the 127-year-old span last year, and he was hired through a contractor, Greenman Pedersen, Inc.
Biden joined Mayor Bloomberg, Rep. Jerry Nadler and other officials to spotlight the $30 million in stimulus funds going into the four-year project.
The VP lauded the mayor as a careful steward of government dollars, a striking contrast to his remarks last February questioning if Bloomberg was exaggerating the cost of staging terror trials in lower Manhattan.
“Mr. Mayor, whenever any money comes this way, I never have a doubt. No, I mean that sincerely, I never have a doubt about whether or not it’s going to be spent well,” Biden said.
“It is a real, real asset to have someone with the skill and competence of Mayor Bloomberg, making sure and managing that flow [of federal dollars] through.”