page_title: Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge
section_title: Preparation
hierarchical_section_title: Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge / History / Construction / Preparation
caption_attribution_description: English: Verrazano-Narrows Bridge during construction
context_page_description: The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is a suspension bridge connecting the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn. It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed Upper New York Bay with Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and is the only fixed crossing of the Narrows. The double-deck bridge carries 13 lanes of Interstate 278, with seven lanes on the upper level and six on the lower level. The span is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first documented European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River in 1524.
  Engineer David B. Steinman proposed a bridge across the Narrows in the late 1920s, and subsequent proposals were deferred over the next 20 years. A 1920s attempt to build a rail tunnel under the Narrows was aborted, as was another 1930s plan for vehicular tubes underneath the Narrows. Discussion of a tunnel resurfaced in the mid-1930s and early 1940s, but the plans were again denied. In the late 1940s, urban planner Robert Moses championed a bridge across the Narrows as a way to connect Staten Island with the rest of the city. Various issues delayed the start of construction until 1959.
context_section_description: Surveying work for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge began in January 1959. The official construction on the bridge began on August 14, 1959, with a groundbreaking ceremony on the Staten Island anchorage. Those in attendance included New Jersey Governor Meyner, New York City Mayor Wagner, and TBTA Chairman Moses. Although New York Governor Rockefeller had been invited to the event, neither he nor Assembly Speaker Joseph F. Carlino showed up. In December 1959, the TBTA was put in charge of funding and building the bridge.  To raise money for construction, Rockefeller signed a bill that would remove the 4% ceiling on the interest rates for the securities that the TBTA was selling to pay for the bridge. This ceiling would be lifted until June 1965. In essence, this meant that the TBTA could sell securities at much higher interest rates to raise the $320 million that was needed.
  The Swiss-born engineer Othmar Ammann was named as the senior partner for the project. Other notable figures involved chief engineer Milton Brumer; project engineers Herb Rothman and Frank L. Stahl; design engineer Leopold Just; Safety Engineer Alonzo Dickinson, and engineer of construction John West Kinney. Meanwhile, John "Hard Nose" Murphy supervised the span's and cables' construction.
  Before starting actual work on the bridge, the TBTA destroyed the structures at the future locations of the anchorages. The agency acquired 36 acres (15 ha) of the 138 acres (56 ha) within Fort Hamilton, in return for paying for a $12 million renovation of the Army installation and giving up 10.8 acres (4.4 ha) of land in Dyker Beach Park. A 1,000-ton World War I monument on the Brooklyn side, within the path of the future Seventh Avenue approach, was placed atop rolling logs and shifted 370 ft (110 m). The right-of-way for the Seventh Avenue approach was also being cleared, and despite initial opposition to the clearing work, all of the residents within the approach's path eventually acquiesced to moving elsewhere. To prevent contractors from delaying work on the expressways on either side of the bridge, Moses warned them of steep fines if the expressways were not completed by the time the bridge was finished.
caption: Tower and cables during construction without risers or roadbed
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