page_title: Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge
section_title: Tentative names
hierarchical_section_title: Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge / Naming / Tentative names
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking east across Lily Pond Avenue at entrance monument on the north side of Major Avenue, which no longer has an entrance to the bridge.
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: During the planning stages, the bridge was originally named simply the "Narrows Bridge". The co-naming of the bridge for Verrazzano (with two "z"s) was controversial. It was first proposed in 1951 by the Italian Historical Society of America, when the bridge was in the planning stage. After Robert Moses turned down the initial proposal, the society undertook a public relations campaign to re-establish Verrazzano's largely forgotten reputation and to promote the idea of naming the bridge for him. The society's director, John N. LaCorte, successfully lobbied several governors of states along the U.S.'s East Coast to proclaim April 17, the anniversary of Verrazzano's arrival in the harbor, as Verrazzano Day. LaCorte then approached the TBTA again, but was turned down a second time. The manager of the authority, backed by Moses, said the name was too long and that he had never heard of Verrazzano. The explorer's name had previously been suggested for the George Washington Bridge, located several miles north, in 1931.
  The Italian Historical Society later successfully lobbied to get a bill introduced in the New York State Assembly to name the bridge for the explorer. After the introduction of the bill, the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce joined the society in promoting the name. In April 1958, Governor W. Averell Harriman announced that he would propose naming the Narrows Bridge after Verrazzano in honor of the explorer's voyage to the New York Harbor in 1524. His successor, Nelson Rockefeller, put his support behind the one-"z" "Verrazano" name in April 1959, saying that it was the Americans' standard way of spelling the explorer's name. According to Gay Talese, the one-"z" name was bolstered by the fact that it appeared on the bridge's first construction contracts in 1959; this incorrect spelling persisted in all subsequent references to the bridge.
  Although the "Verrazano" name was not finalized yet, The New York Times noted that the Staten Island Ferry boat carrying dignitaries to the bridge's August 1959, groundbreaking ceremony was named the "Verrazzano". The Times further stated that former Governor Harriman and Mayor Wagner had respectively proposed a "Verrazzano Bridge" and proclaimed a "Verrazzano Day". The Staten Island Chamber of Commerce opposed the Verrazzano name altogether, saying that the proper name of the bridge should be "Staten Island Bridge" because there was also a "Brooklyn Bridge", a "Manhattan Bridge", a "Queens Bridge", and a "Bronx Bridge". The Italian Historical Society was reportedly perplexed about the opposition to the "Verrazano" name. In response to the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce's opposition, the TBTA offered to add a hyphen between "Verrazano" and "Narrows".
caption: The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Memorial on Lily Pond Avenue, near the bridge's Staten Island entrance
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