page_title: Lincoln Tunnel
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Lincoln Tunnel / History / Third tube / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Lincoln Tunnel, New Jersey side approach and "Helix", circa 1955.
context_page_description: The Lincoln Tunnel is an approximately 1.5-mile-long tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey, to the west with Midtown Manhattan in New York City to the east. It was designed by Ole Singstad and named after Abraham Lincoln. The tunnel consists of three vehicular tubes of varying lengths, with two traffic lanes in each tube. The center tube contains reversible lanes, while the northern and southern tubes exclusively carry westbound and eastbound traffic, respectively.
  The Lincoln Tunnel was originally proposed in the late 1920s and early 1930s as the Midtown Hudson Tunnel. The tubes of the Lincoln Tunnel were constructed in stages between 1934 and 1957. Construction of the central tube, which originally lacked sufficient funding due to the Great Depression, started in 1934 and it opened in 1937. The northern tube started construction in 1936, was delayed due to World War II-related material shortages, and opened in 1945. Although the original plans for the Lincoln Tunnel called for two tubes, a third tube to the south of the existing tunnels was planned in 1950 due to high traffic demand on the other two tubes.
context_section_description: The Port Authority awarded its first material contract for the third tube, a $10 million order of steel tunnel segments from Bethlehem Steel, in October 1952. It also evicted 900 families from 70 buildings to make way for the new tube's approaches. The next month, the agency ordered 1.2 million bolts and washers to secure the tunnel segments.  The Port Authority planned to finance the third tube's construction with a consolidated bond offering of $500 million, which would be dispersed among other Port Authority projects as well. An initial bond offering of $35 million was made in December 1952, and the Port Authority later borrowed $20 million to finance this offering. A contract to dig the actual bore under the river was awarded in October 1953.
  Weehawken's government still held a negative attitude toward the Lincoln Tunnel digging work, and in June 1953, ordered policemen to arrest workers who were bringing equipment into the tunnel, under the pretense that the tunnel lacked a building permit. In response, the Port Authority obtained a writ from a Hudson County, New Jersey, judge, who allowed tube work to proceed and forced the Weehawken government to explain its legal reasoning for blocking the tube's construction. A committee of New Jersey politicians was convened to determine how much the Port Authority should pay the town of Weehawken for land acquisition. Representatives and residents of Weehawken wanted more compensation than what the Port Authority was willing to offer. On March 16, 1954, the Supreme Court of New Jersey ordered that work on the third tube be halted because it was tantamount to a brand-new crossing, rather than an addition to an existing crossing. However, the New Jersey legislature voted to allow the resumption of work on the tunnel, while the New York state legislature finally gave formal authorization for the Port Authority to build the tube. Eight days after the New Jersey Supreme Court's stop-work order, construction resumed on the tube. The township of Weehawken agreed to tax the tunnel at a lower price than what it was originally asking.
  A contract for a ventilation building on the New York side, above 38th Street east of 12th Avenue, was let in June 1954. That September, the Port Authority opened the contract for the renovation of the New Jersey side's tunnel plaza, which would have to be rebuilt in order to accommodate the new tunnel portal, since the existing administration buildings were located in the path of the third tube's approach. The same month, the Port Authority published plans for an 800-space parking complex on the New Jersey side. This parking lot opened in November 1955, fourteen months later.
  Meanwhile, sandhogs began digging the tunnel from a 55-foot-deep (17 m) pit on the New Jersey side, with plans to connect that bore with the tunnel being dug from the New York side at a point 95 feet (29 m) under the Hudson River. The pieces for a pressurized digging shield were hoisted into the New Jersey construction pit in late September 1954, and the completed shield began digging toward New York a month and a half later. In February 1955, the Port Authority awarded contracts for widening the New Jersey side's loop approach from six to seven lanes, as well as a second contract for widening the North Bergen, New Jersey, "express highway" from six to eight lanes, and a third for a new toll plaza at the bottom of the loop approach. By this time, it was projected that a new Hudson River crossing might need to be built north of the Lincoln Tunnel by the 1960s. The boring operation from the New Jersey side had crossed eastward into the state border by October 1955.
  Work on the tube was temporarily stopped in January 1956 after water from the Hudson River leaked into the New York side of the tunnel. Almost immediately after the tube had been pumped dry, workers went on strike for a week, even though the ends of the bores were only about 350 feet (110 m) away from being connected. Construction was further disrupted by an air leakage on the New York side in May, and a contractors' strike 
caption: View of New Jersey entrance in 1955, with the south tube under construction
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