History
The tunnel and approaches were designed by Singstad and Baillie, a New York-based engineering firm specializing in tunnel design, in association with the J.E Greiner Company, a local Baltimore-based firm. The tunnel was formed out of 21 310-foot (94 m) sections individually submerged into the harbor and secured with rocks and backfill; the first of these tunnel segments was sunk on April 11, 1956. The remainder of the tunnel was constructed using the cut-and-cover method, extending from the submerged tubes to the north and south portals.
The tunnel opened on November 29, 1957 (along with most of the Thruway), nearly two months ahead of schedule. At the time, the toll was forty cents. The day the tunnel was opened, it experienced heavy traffic for the first time as thousands of motorists traveled north to Philadelphia to watch the 1957 Army–Navy football game.
Shortly after the nearby Fort McHenry Tunnel opened in 1985 — making up the final link of Interstate 95 in Maryland — the Harbor Tunnel was closed in phases for extensive rehabilitation. It was fully reopened by 1990.
In November, 2007, the 50th anniversary of the tunnel serving travelers was observed.
Read more about this topic: Baltimore Harbor Tunnel
Famous quotes containing the word history:
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—Attributed to Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)