Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, suspension bridge spanning The Narrows in New York Bay between Staten Island and the borough of Brooklyn, on Long Island, New York. It was named after Giovanni da Verrazano, a 16th-century Italian navigator who, in 1524, became the first European to enter what is now New York Bay.

The bridge was built between 1959 and 1964, and was designed by Othmar H. Ammann. With a main span of 1,298 m (4,260 ft), it overtook the Golden Gate Bridge, in San Francisco, as the longest suspension bridge in the world, and held this title until the Humber Bridge, in the United Kingdom, opened in 1981. The deck is supported by four cables, each hanging from a tower 210 m (690 ft) high. The six-lane roadway lies 69 m (228 ft) above the average level of high water, and can be up to 3.7 m (12 ft) lower in the summer than in the winter owing to the seasonal contractions and expansions of the steel cables. At US$325 million, the cost of the construction of the bridge was high, partly because of the cost of land acquisition, but it led to considerable residential development on Staten Island.