New York’s Longest Bridge | Verrazano Narrows

Ever look at a map of New York City and wonder, what is that bit of water between Staten Island and Brooklyn? Well, that, my friends, is the Narrows, the gateway to the mighty Hudson River, which ultimately empties into the Atlantic Ocean. In other words, this is the main entrance to New York City, and it's adorned by a colossal structure called the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Now, this isn't just any bridge, it's the longest suspension bridge in all of North America, and the 11th longest bridge in the world. Today, we discover how it came to be. This is the story of New York's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I'm your host, Ryan Socash, and you're watching It's History. Let's turn back the hands of time, back before there was a bridge across the Narrows and Staten Island was largely isolated from the rest of New York City. That's right, there was a time when the only connection to the city's other four boroughs was by the Staten Island Ferry to South Ferry in Manhattan, or by ferries to 39th and 69th Street in Brooklyn. So that's all to say that if this island wanted to be a part of the city, it needed a direct connection to the mainland. This was by no means an uncommon thought. In fact, since the 1880s, engineers had been dreaming of a way to cross the Narrows. But since the channel is a mile wide, the dream was simply impossible before the Industrial Revolution. The first idea of crossing the water surfaced in 1888, though a bridge was not the only possibility. Just as prevalent as a proposal for a bridge was a proposed tunnel under the Narrows, though these ideas never got past the concept phase due to the high price of excavation. Most notably was the 1926 pitch by engineer David B. Steinman that future designers kept returning to as time passed. Anyhow, proposals continued to appear year after year, with one of the most defined concepts appearing in 1929 for a project dubbed Liberty Bridge. Engineers revealed plans for the 4,500-long-foot bridge that would span across the Narrows using 800-foot towers to suspend it above the waters. There was hope that the project proposal would spark interest in Staten Island's development as the Bayon Bridge and the Outer Crossing were already underway. And hence, the idea was proposed. Liberty Bridge would cater to vehicles traveling from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to a chosen destination on the island. The towers were estimated to cost $60 million. Now as for the other proposals, we'll have to take a look underground. As you might recall from a previous video, before the bridge proposal, there was a pitch in 1923 for a tunnel to connect Staten Island to New York City's subway service. But the idea died in 1925. Two years after being pitched and with only 150 feet excavated. As other proposals, such as Steinman's, went around the following year, interest in the Staten Island tunnel renewed, along with plans for vehicular tunnels, but never getting further than Brooklyn's shoreline before being canceled. Delays kept coming in as time went on, even after the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill in February of 1933 authorizing the construction of a suspension bridge across the Narrows. Though I should point out that the War Department still denounced this idea in April of 1934, opting to have private interests look into tunneling instead. Discussions started again in 1936 when New York's then-Mayor LaGuardia petitioned the U.S. Congress for the potential tunnel development and brought the issue to the New York City Tunnel Authority the following year. However, since the plan would compromise the quality of life in Bay Ridge, it was dropped before the 1940s. Even so, it was this last cancellation that brought about the final proposal. Led by Robert Moses, the chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the New Yorkers presented this concept to the War Department for a bridge across the Narrows in 1948. However, like earlier attempts, Bay Ridge constituents disputed the proposal since not only would it diminish the area's character, but its construction would clog the Narrows if another war erupted. Even so, despite opinion polls deciding against the bridge, the United States military approved the idea in 1949, with the condition that it needed to begin construction in five years or less. Now, Moses decided to build a bridge over a tunnel for several reasons. For example, it would be less expensive, much faster, and easier, plus a bridge could support a higher traffic volume. We should also mention that these days, a bridge like this is perfect for anyone in Allow me to explain. 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If you don't win an auction using these bids, or you don't like it for any reason, just contact DealDash, and you'll get your money back, no questions asked, on your first bid pack purchase. And with that being said, let's return to the story of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Survey work was finished in January of 1959, and following that, displacements began. Robert Moses, an experienced urban planner, brought something of a reputation with him. You see, as this wasn't his first time displacing New Yorkers for construction projects, this undoubtedly played into the Bay Ridge neighborhood's reluctancy to participate in the project. And when 7,000 residents were displaced, and 800 homes were demolished, their fears were realized. Nevertheless, construction began on August the 14th, 1959. Construction began with the development of steel and concrete anchors on both ends of the Narrows, which were needed to hold up the bridge cables. Workers navigated the build site using catwalks hooked to each tower. They didn't have harnesses, posing several safety issues, and unfortunately, causing the death of a 19-year-old worker named Gerald McKee on October the 9th, 1963. Since this wasn't the first death, workers went on strike for five days on December the 2nd, demanding safety nets. After their demands were met, the nets saved the lives of three other falling iron workers. In total, the construction saw the deaths of three workers. To keep on schedule, each of the towers was completed by different construction companies. Bethlehem Steel built the Staten Island Tower, and the Harris Structural Company built the Brooklyn side. They were constructed in three parts, and then brought to the site by barges for installation. Devices called derricks were positioned alongside the tower piers, which lifted the tower pieces into place atop the anchorages, before ultimately being secured together. It's also worth noting that the towers were not built parallel to each other. Rather, they were built one and five-eighths of an inch further apart at their peak than their base to compensate for the curvature of the earth, a fact that presents the mammoth scale of construction that this bridge required. One of the two 693-foot towers were built, then the cables to hold them up had to be spun, beginning in March of 1963. This was the most time-consuming and costly part of the bridge's construction. Considering that 142,520 miles of bridge cables needed to be strung, 104,432 times were on the bridge. Nevertheless, the cables were set by wheels, spinning the wire back and forth from one end of the bridge to the other, in a process that lasted nearly six months, running day and night. As the 428 wires spun through the wheel, workers grabbed them as they passed through and clamped them together, ultimately forming a singular strand. Sixty-one of these were then hydraulically pressed and encased in steel. Once all four main cables were fabricated, the 262 steel suspender ropes prefabricated off-site were attached to the main cables. From there, the bridge decks could be installed once the suspension cables were in place. Starting in October of 1963, these decks were designed with a double deck to increase the bridge's rigidity, since the scale of the project was so grand. Past failures, such as the collapse of the single-decked Tacoma Bridge in 1940, made this seem the only viable option. Each deck was reinforced with steel beams to ensure nothing could happen, protecting it from vertical and lateral pressure. Once constructed, these decks were placed starting at the middle of the bridge, working their way towards the towers so as to not cause deflection in them. By early 1964, all of the decks were placed. They secured the entire bridge and installed the concrete roadways. Initially, intending to wrap up construction in 1965, the construction team made progress much faster than expected, allowing the bridge to open on November 21, 1964, a few months ahead of schedule. To celebrate the bridge's opening, a ceremony was held where 5,000 people came to watch the governor cut the gold ribbon. The motorists were allowed to cross the bridge for $0.50, which is actually over $10 when adjusted for inflation back in 2022. Anyhow, within the first 24 hours, over 100,000 cars crossed the bridge. However, none of the 12,000 workers who actually helped to construct this bridge were invited to the ceremony, so they boycotted the event. Instead, attending a mass in memory of the three men who died to build the bridge. The bridge's impact was immediate and widespread. Only five days after the opening, the Staten Island Ferry, one of the previous main transportation options, actually had to stop running due to the sheer number of people choosing the bridge. And this was just the beginning, as after two short months, over 1.86 million vehicles crossed the bridge, generating nearly $1 million in revenue, bringing a lot of notoriety to this new structure and leading many to wonder, why did they name it what they did? Well, the narrowest part makes sense, given its location, but why the difficult to pronounce Verrazano? Well, the reason for the name is a complex issue. Initially, it was misspelled in the construction contract with only one Z in the name rather than two. Which you might think is a fair and simple mistake, but it was likely intentional due to Governor Rockefeller, the man in charge of New York when the bridge was put on the books, believing that the name should be spelled in the American way rather than his own. This caused a great deal of controversy, with many newspapers, radio operators, and news reporters choosing to call it the Narrows Bridge, or the Brooklyn-Staten Island Bridge, not to butcher the man's name. On a side note, this issue occurred infrequently until 2016 when a bill to correct the name was introduced. After stalling due to concerns about the projected cost of changing all the dozens of signs bearing the bridge's name, the New York State Senate corrected the mistake in 2018, opting to actually leave the incorrect signage as is and only changing the name on the books or any new signs. So New York had finally solved a 59-year-old problem. The construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was quickly followed by New Jersey's Gothel's Bridge to Staten Island, and then the Holland Tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan. And as you might suspect, these led to the decreased use of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, though it still saw considerable traffic, to the point that expansion was warranted. Luckily, that possibility had been planned for ahead of time, since it was always a double-decked bridge, trusses were placed to support expansion, to the point of doubling the six-lane roadway at the top with a second six-lane roadway underneath. This forward thinking bore fruit in March of 1969 when the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority opted to install a lower deck, and by June the 28th of that same year, the six extra lanes were added and ready for use. By this point, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was a crowning achievement of American and human engineering. In fact, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time, with a 4,260 foot center span. As the 1970s arrived, the pride of this achievement culminated in a plan to hang a massive U.S. flag on the side of the bridge to celebrate the nation's 200th anniversary in 1976, larger than a football field. It was the largest American flag ever made at the time, but unfortunately, it was not nearly as durable as it was enormous. It was torn apart after just three days of hanging against the bridge's suspender cables, which carved away at it like razors every time the winds picked up. Not to be deterred, an even larger flag was flown on the bridge from the 4th of July in 1980. But this time, importantly, there was a steel grid to protect the flag from the cables. The bridge's tolls also saw drastic improvement with E-ZPass in 1995, and this had a remarkable impact on the quality of life for New Yorkers, bringing down the average time to pass a toll booth from 15 minutes to just 30 seconds. By 2017, with the spread of cashless tolling, westbound booths were also dismantled and replaced with cameras and E-ZPass readers, and if drivers don't have an E-ZPass, a picture is simply taken of their license plate, and then the bill is sent to the car's owner. But in terms of the bridge itself, the constant amount of traffic and the march of time took its toll, and it needed a fresh look. So in 2014, a $1.5 billion reconstruction began, planning to replace the upper deck with orthotropic sections and a removal of the divider to add a 7th lane as a high-occupancy vehicle lane for cars with two or more passengers. While the COVID-19 pandemic sped up the process somewhat on account of a reduced flow in traffic, the estimated total duration of this project still sits at 25 years. The bridge across the Narrows is the first sight any seabound visitor to New York City will see. Overlooking the mouth of the river, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is the gateway to New York City, and an iconic sight of its own. Sure, it may not get as much press as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, but first impressions are crucial. Important enough that several artists actually expressed concern during the time of the 1980 flag that the bridge would upstage Lady Liberty herself. We're going to leave it there for today, but if you'd like to see more, I actually posted some exclusive pictures of the bridge in our members area, so don't forget to check that out by clicking join. Otherwise, please consider subscribing, and until next time. I'm Ryan Socash, signing off.