Four hundred and forty years later and fifty years ago the bridge connecting two sides of the narrows- Staten Island and Brooklyn was built. The Italian Historical Society of America suggested to name the bridge "Verrazano Bridge" to honor Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. Governor Nelson Rockefeller agreed, but the name was misspelled - the second 'z' got dropped from the name . Other suggested names for the bridge included: the Gateway Bridge, the Liberty Bridge and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge.
Between the late 1800s and about 1935, there were many attempts to build a tunnel between Staten Island and Manhattan. In 1923 the construction of the Staten Island tunnel started .The tunnel had to connect railways on Staten Island to the subway line on the Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. The full plan included Narrows Tunnel, the 4th Avenue Brooklyn subway, and another tunnel going directly from Staten Island to Manhattan, with stops on the Jersey side of the harbor, and even stations at Liberty and Ellis islands. Because of unexpected costs, the work was stopped. The abandoned tunnel went 150 feet (45m) into The Narrows in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.
By the way there are really two underwater tunnels between Brooklyn and Staten Island, but these tunnels, built more than hundred years ago, are not for the cars and buses but for the drinking water. Staten Island is the island in the ocean and does not have its own source of drinking water. In 1970 a new 10-foot diameter Richmond water tunnel was built, so the old water tunnels remain now as a backup.
In 1926, bridge engineer David Steinman proposed a suspension bridge across the Narrows. Steinmann named it Liberty Bridge. The proposed bridge was a hybrid of the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and the Brooklyn Bridge with two 800-foot-tall Gothic towers . The Liberty bridge was never built.
The New York City Board of Transportation floated two additional Narrows Tunnel proposals in 1929 and 1937. All proposals were shelved because of the Depression, and later, because of World War II.
In 1957 the New York State Legislature and the Board of Estimate approved construction of the new bridge. The bridge was the brainchild of Robert Moses, who had more influence on New York City that perhaps any other individual in its history. Among Moses's many other projects are the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The bridge, connecting Staten Island to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was the last major road in Moses's grand plan to connect all of New York by car.
The chief engineer was the great Swiss engineer Othmar Ammann. The bridge was the last project designed by Ammann, who had started his career in New York on the George Washington Bridge in 1927. When Verrazano bridge opened, Ammann was 85 years old.
The new bridge was so large that its design called for the towers to be angled slightly away from each other to compensate for the curvature of the Earth. Some 12,000 men worked on the bridge; about 1,000 men worked on site during the construction schedule's peak. About 800 buildings were demolished, requiring the relocation of 7,000 residents.
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened on November 21, 1964, at a cost of $320.1 million. At that time it was the longest cable suspension bridge in the world. Today it remains the longest suspension bridge in the United States, spanning 9,865 feet. On November 22, 1964, the Bay Ridge-St. George, Staten Island ferry went out of business after almost a century’s service. In 1964 the cost to cross the bridge was $0.50. Now the full fare is $15. By 2009, the bridge was generating $1 million every twenty four hours for the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. MTA officials are considering yet another hike on the Verrazano Bridge - the drivers will pay $16 cash toll to make the journey from Brooklyn to Staten Island.
There are three amusing facts that I found about the bridge on Wikipedia:• Because of thermal expansion of the steel cables, the bridge roadway is 12 feet (3.66 m) lower in summer than in winter
• The bridge's two towers are the tallest structures in New York City outside of Manhattan, and are taller than the tallest non-Manhattan buildings.
• The cruise ship Queen Mary 2 was redesigned with a flatter funnel to pass under the bridge, and has 13 feet (3.96 m) of clearance under the bridge during high tide.
The construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened many areas of the Staten Island to residential and commercial development. Staten Island's population doubled from about 221,000 in 1960 to about 443,000 in 2000.
Verrazano bridge remains the major commuting artery connecting Staten Island to the rest of New York City, carrying nearly 200,000 drivers each day. Fifty years ago years ago a regular U.S. mail stamp was issued in 1964, celebrating the bridge's opening.
Tomorrow, on the bridge's 50th anniversary United States Post Office representatives will officially unveil an express mail stamp commemorating the event.
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