The glorious Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn, marks the entrance to New York Harbor. Nearly every cruise ship and many of the largest container ships arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey must pass beneath its span.
VerrazZano-Narrows Bridge Name
The bridge bears the name of Giovanni da Verrazzano, the Italian explorer who, in 1524, became the first known European navigator to sail into New York Harbor and describe the area. Sadly, his explorations of the New World were cut short as he was consumed – literally – by a cannibal tribe during an expedition in the Caribbean. The bridge, the only namesake of the Italian explorer, reflects the efforts of New York City’s Italian-American community, which successfully campaigned for the honor.
Size and Scale
When it opened in 1964, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge had the longest suspension-bridge main span in the world, measuring 4,260 feet—a record it held until 1981, when England’s Humber Bridge opened with a 4,626-foot span. Although it is no longer the world’s longest, it remains the longest suspension bridge in the United States. Its total length, including its approaches, is 13,700 feet, or about 2.6 miles. Its enormous towers, rising 693 feet above the water, are among New York City’s most recognizable landmarks and can be seen from all five boroughs. The two towers stand 4,260 feet apart, and their tops are actually 1⅝ inches farther apart than their bases to account for the Earth’s curvature.
The scale of the bridge required extraordinary engineering. Each tower weighs approximately 27,000 tons and is held together by three million rivets and one million bolts. The bridge’s massive cables are also affected by nature. According to the MTA, seasonal changes cause the steel cables to expand and contract, making the double-decked roadway sit about 12 feet lower in summer than in winter.
Verrazano-Narrows History
The creation of the bridge was championed by Robert Moses, New York’s powerful master builder. Moses envisioned the bridge as part of a much larger system of highways and parkways—a network designed to connect New York’s boroughs and the surrounding region by automobile. The new crossing would allow motorists from Staten Island and New Jersey to reach Brooklyn and Long Island without having to pass through Manhattan.
The bridge was designed by the legendary Swiss-American engineer Othmar Ammann, who had already played a major role in some of New York’s great bridges, including the George Washington Bridge. The Verrazzano-Narrows would be Ammann’s final major bridge—the culmination of a remarkable career that had transformed the New York skyline and the art of bridge engineering. He was 85 years old when the bridge opened in 1964.
Verrazzano-Narrows vs Golden Gate
For comparison, the Golden Gate Bridge held the record for the world’s longest suspension-bridge main span when it opened in 1937, measuring 4,200 feet. Then, in 1964, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge surpassed it by just 60 feet. The Verrazzano remained the world’s longest suspension-bridge span until the Humber Bridge opened in 1981.
And every year, the bridge takes center stage as the dramatic starting point of the New York City Marathon, where thousands of runners cross its upper deck at the very beginning of their 26.2-mile journey through the five boroughs.
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