Verrazano-Narrows Bridge - History

History

The bridge is owned by the City of New York and operated by MTA Bridges and Tunnels, an affiliate agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Interstate 278 passes over the bridge, connecting the Staten Island Expressway with the Gowanus Expressway and the Belt Parkway. The Verrazano, along with the other three major Staten Island bridges, created a new way for commuters and travelers to reach Brooklyn, Long Island, and Manhattan by car from New Jersey.

The bridge was the last great public works project in New York City overseen by Robert Moses, the New York State Parks Commissioner and head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, who had long desired the bridge as a means of completing the expressway system which was itself largely the result of his efforts. The bridge was also the last project designed by Chief Engineer Othmar Ammann, who had also designed most of the other major crossings of New York City, including the George Washington Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge, the Bronx Whitestone Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, and the Throgs Neck Bridge. The plans to build the bridge caused considerable controversy in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge, because many families had settled in homes in the area where the bridge now stands and were forced to relocate.

Construction on the bridge began August 13, 1959, and the upper deck was opened on November 21, 1964, at a cost of $320 million. Three men died building the bridge, including nineteen-year-old Gerard McKee, whose death became the subject of a chapter of Gay Talese's book, The Bridge.

New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony, which was attended by over 5,000 people. He was the first person to be driven over the bridge. The lower deck opened on June 28, 1969. The bridge took over the title of the longest suspension bridge in the world (previously held by the Golden Gate Bridge) from 1964 until 1981, when it was eclipsed by the Humber Bridge in England.

Fort Lafayette was an island coastal fortification in New York Harbor, built next to Fort Hamilton at the southern tip of what is now Bay Ridge. It was destroyed as part of the bridge's construction in 1960; the Brooklyn-side bridge pillars now occupy the fort's former foundation.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation:

• Each of the two towers contains 1 million bolts and 3 million rivets.
• The diameter of each of the four suspension cables is 36 inches (914 mm). Each cable is composed of 26,108 wires amounting to a total of 143,000 miles (230,136 km) in length
• Because of the height of the towers (693 ft/211 m) and their distance apart (4,260 ft/1,298 m), the curvature of the Earth's surface had to be taken into account when designing the bridge—the towers are 1+5⁄₈ inches (41.275 mm) farther apart at their tops than at their bases.
• 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 is affected by weather more than any other bridge in the city because of its size and isolated location close to the open ocean. It is occasionally closed (either partially or entirely) during strong wind and snow storms.

The RMS Queen Mary 2 was designed 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 bridge has fostered more traffic on the Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals Bridge, both of which connect Staten Island with New Jersey.

In 2009 all 262 of the mercury vapor fixtures in the bridge's necklace lighting were replaced with energy efficient light-emitting diodes.