November 21, 1964: The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge Opens

November 21, 1964, 60 years ago: The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge opens, connecting the New York City Boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island, via Interstate 278. It is the last great road project of New York's "master builder," Robert Moses. And, for the next 17 years, it is the longest suspension bridge in the world. In 2024, it remains the longest in the Americas.

On April 17, 1524, 500 years ago, Italian (Florentine) explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano became the 1st European to sight the land that would become New York City, and its bodies of water, including the Hudson River (named for the later English explorer Henry Hudson) and "The Narrows," the strip of water between Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Up until the 1920s, Staten Island was isolated: Its only connections with any other land were by the Staten Island Ferry system, connecting it with Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the New Jersey cities of Bayonne, Elizabeth and Perth Amboy. In 1928, the Outerbridge Crossing was built, connecting it with Perth Amboy, and the original Goethals Bridge (replaced by the current bridge in 2017) connected it with Elizabeth. In 1931, the Bayonne Bridge opened. But this didn't help people trying to get to and from the rest of New York City.

A "Liberty Bridge" and tunnel connecting the Subway system to Staten Island were proposed around this time, but federal funding for these projects was blocked by a Congressman from The Bronx -- Fiorello La Guardia, who was elected Mayor in 1933. He believed that a public necessity should not be provided by private interests. (The controversy over the Ambassador Bridge, built around that time between Detroit and the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario, shows that he was right.)

In 1947, Moses was ready to try again, and got the federal government to approve a plan for a bridge, despite angry opposition from the people of Bay Ridge, the neighborhood where its Brooklyn anchorage would be. Considerably more people would be displaced on Staten Island, but, overall, the people of that Borough understood the benefits of having the bridge, and supported the idea. The Bay Ridge opposition led to the decision to put it, instead, at the uninhabited Fort Lafayette, so no houses would have to be demolished.

Still, it took years for the construction to be approved, and it did not begin until August 14, 1959. About 10,000 men worked on the construction. Three died: Paul Bessett, 58, who fell off the deck and struck a tower in 1962; Irving Rubin, 58, who fell off the bridge approach in 1963; and Gerard McKee, considerably younger at 19, who slipped off a catwalk in 1963. His death led to a strike by workers, demanding safety nets under the deck. After 5 days, they got the nets, and resumed work.

The opening ceremony was held on November 21, 1964, with a gold ribbon being cut by Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and Borough Presidents Abe Stark of Brooklyn and Albert Maniscalo of Staten Island. (Stark had been a clothing store owner, who advertised on the right field wall at the Dodgers' Ebbets Field: "HIT SIGN WIN SUIT.")

The towers are 693 feet high, making each of them, easily, the tallest structures in their respective Boroughs at the time. Since 2019, 2 buildings higher than the bridge's towers have been constructed in Brooklyn. 

The towers are are 4,290 feet apart. In 1981, this world record was broken by the Humber Bridge in Hull, Yorkshire, England. In 2022, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge, in the city of the same name in Turkey, opened, and set a new record of 6,637 feet.

There is no direct passenger rail connection between Staten Island and the rest of the City. The Staten Island Rapid Transit (SIRT) rail line goes from the St. George Ferry Terminal (St. George to South Ferry in Manhattan has long been the last remaining Staten Island Ferry) down the east and southern coast of the island to Tottenville, and is technically part of the City's Subway system. But the only way to get from it to the Subway proper is via the Ferry.

A bus line on Staten Island's Victory Boulevard was extended over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to the 95th Street terminal of what's now the R Train in Brooklyn, but, unlike most Subway-to-bus (or vice versa) transfers in the City, this one is not free if done within 2 hours.

The Verrazzano -- the full name is rarely used -- is best known for 2 things: The highest tolls of any bridge or tunnel in the New York Tri-State Area, and being the starting point for the New York City Marathon. Since part of the idea for the Marathon was that it would use all Five Boroughs, the closest point between Staten Island and any other Borough was an easy choice, made even easier by the toll plaza being wide enough to accommodate thousands of runners.