Yesterday in Big Apple History

What major NYC structure celebrated its centennial yesterday? 

Hint:  Technically, it opened on December 31st, but who wants to walk across this thing in winter?

Answer (and a fantastic photo) after the jump.

Notes on the George Washington Bridge Tour

Although yesterday's video is almost six minutes long, we STILL had extra material we wanted to include.  

--There are actually TWO Manhattan bridges named after George Washington.  The other crosses the Harlem River at 181st.  Besides these bridges, Washington's name is attached to twelve avenues and streets as well as the large neighborhood near the top of Manhattan.  I think it's fitting that we named so much of our city after the first president since the earliest known use of the term "New Yorker" comes from a letter written by George Washington in 1756.

--William Randolph Hearst assumed that the bridge to span the Hudson would line up with the midtown bridge that spanned the East River (the Queensboro), so he bought up a row of real estate lining 57th Street.  (This explains why the Heart Headquarters is located on 57th and Eighth Avenue.  See the Newest Star of the Skyline in our First Hoparound Tour.)  To his surprise, however, the bridge was eventually built over 100 blocks north. 

--The GW took 4 years to complete and cost 13 lives, not including the one man who died of a heart attack while waiting in the crowds on Opening Day.

--The main span of the GW Bridge is 3500 feet, more than twice as long as the span of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Six years later, however, the GW was surpassed by San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge (4200 feet).  In 1964, New York reclaimed the title of America's longest suspension bridge when the Verrazano-Narrows opened.  The Verrazano is currently the seventh longest suspension bridge in the world.

Yesterday's video post was directed by Nona Lloyd and featured Berda Gilmore as the enthusiastic real estate broker.  Nona directed several of the Little Bytes up Broadway--between Madison Square and Columbus Circle--and Berda appeared in several bytes shot in Central Park and along 46th Street.

Berda Gilmore recently moved to Los Angeles from New York City where she worked and studied as an actress. Berda is having such a good time on the West Coast that she has been chronicling her adventures on her hugely popular website www.berdagilmore.com.

Nona Lloyd is now the General Manager of the new hot lounge, WATERMARK,located on the Jersey Shore in Asbury Park.  While it may seem that she's left the theater world, she's still using all of her producing and directing skills, every ounce of her creativity, and is sure to jump into "show biz" again.

Hudson Heights, Part One--The George Washington Bridge (The Bridge and the Broker)

Our fifth video tour is finally here.  Every other Monday we'll be posting the newest byte in our walk through Hudson Heights, my neighborhood in Upstate Manhattan, the stretch on the western ridge between the GW Bridge and the Cloisters.  Enjoy!

HUDSON HEIGHTS CALENDAR

3/23--The Bridge

4/6--The People

4/20--The Revolution

5/4--The Apartments

5/18--The Barista

6/1--The Saint

6/15--The Soldier

6/29--The Park

7/13--The Cloisters

7/27--The Sculptor

Dyin' Before the Good Stuff, Part Five

THE WORKERS BENEATH AND BESIDE THE HUDSON

9--Clifford Holland was a pioneer in the construction of underwater tunnels.  In 1919, he became Chief Engineer for the first vehicular tunnel beneath the Hudson River, connecting New Jersey and Manhattan.  Holland was responsible for the two-tube design and oversaw the construction from 1920-1927, but died ONE DAY before the New Jersey and New York teams met in the middle.  In his honor, the tunnel (at one point called Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel Project) was given his name.

(Bonus Trivia:  Ole Singstad who designed the revolutionary ventilation system and eventually took over as Chief Engineer for the Holland Tunnel would go on to design the rest of Manhattan's underwater tunnels--the Lincoln, the Queens-Midtown and the Brooklyn-Battery.)

10--Herman Melville also worked on the Hudson--at the Gansevoort Docks, as a customs inspector.  After the publication of Bartleby the Scrivener and Moby Dick and after the possible suicide of one of his sons, he took this bureaucratic post and worked there for almost twenty years.  He retired in 1886 and died in 1891.  Unlike, say, Fitz Greene Halleck who died, convinced his poetry would last through the ages (he has a statue on the Mall in Central Park along with major figures like Shakespeare, Columbus, Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott), Melville died thinking his contributions to literature would fade with him.  (Only one newspaper carried an obituary--and a brief one at that--for one of America's most significant authors.)  There was some attention paid to his work upon his death, but there would be no major revival until a generation later, in the 1920's, when many of his works were revisited and reissued and one of his novellas, Billy Budd, was published for the first time.  It would prove extraordinarily successful, adapted into an opera and a film, and Moby Dick, of course, has come to be considered one of novels in American literature.

Trivia: Today in Big Apple History

What famous New York City water crossing opened for traffic today in 1937?

What famous shooting took place today in 1984? 

Trivia of the Week--the RFK, the Schwarzman, and the Koch

It's been one full week and I still haven't heard anyone calling the Triborough Bridge by its new name--the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.  I'm counting the days until I hear it--perhaps "take the RFK to JFK"--and will post it here when I do.  Connecting the three boroughs of Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx, the Triborough opened in July of 1936 as a network of bridges (including not only a suspension bridge but the world's highest vertical lift bridge as well).  Its construction was one of the largest public works projects during the Great Depression and, according to the author of The Power Broker, Robert Caro, created thirty-one million man hours of work for the 5000 men at the site and for others in 134 cities and 20 states.

 

Photo by Margaret Bourke-White

THIS WEEK'S TRIVIA:  What two other major institutions are currently being renamed?  What will be known as the Schwarzman?  What will be known as the Koch?  Answers after the jump.

Trivia: Today in Big Apple History

What major New York City feat of engineering opened eighty-one years ago today?

Hint:  the ceremony involved President Calvin Coolidge and a golden lever which parted American flags on either end.  (Answer after the jump.)