The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ( vər-ə-ZAH-noh), also referred to as the Verrazzano Bridge and formerly the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and Narrows Bridge, is the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere, 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. The bridge opened on November 21, 1964, and a lower deck was opened in June 1969 to alleviate high levels of traffic. The New York City government began a $1.5 billion reconstruction of the bridge's two decks in 2014.
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge has a central span of 4,260 feet (1.30 km; 0.81 mi). It was the longest suspension bridge in the world until it was surpassed by the Humber Bridge in the United Kingdom in 1981. The bridge has the 14th-longest main span in the world, as well as the longest in America. Its name was originally spelled "Verrazano-Narrows Bridge" with only one "z" when it was officially named in 1960 due to a naming error in the original construction contract, despite the explorer's name having two "z"s. The name was officially corrected to "Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge" in October 2018.
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