158-526: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York is a 1974 biography of Robert Moses by Robert Caro . The book focuses on the creation and use of power in New York local and state politics, as witnessed through Moses's use of unelected positions to design and implement dozens of highways and bridges, sometimes at great cost to the communities he nominally served. It has been repeatedly named one of
316-418: A persona . That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of the presentation of themselves in everyday life are already formed by what might be called a 'self-biofication' process. Several countries offer an annual prize for writing a biography such as the: Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ( / ˌ v ɛr ə ˈ z ɑː n oʊ / VERR -ə- ZAH -noh ; also referred to as
474-465: 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
632-535: A Solitude, for that was the first instance where a woman told her life story, not as finding "beauty even in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but acknowledging what had previously been forbidden to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open admission of the desire for power and control over one's life." In recent years, multimedia biography has become more popular than traditional literary forms. Along with documentary biographical films , Hollywood produced numerous commercial films based on
790-565: A bestseller in London ), philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill , churchmen – John Henry Newman – and entertainers – P. T. Barnum . The sciences of psychology and sociology were ascendant at the turn of the 20th century and would heavily influence the new century's biographies. The demise of the "great man" theory of history was indicative of the emerging mindset. Human behavior would be explained through Darwinian theories. "Sociological" biographies conceived of their subjects' actions as
948-469: A better connection to the rest of the city. Thus, the bridge's announcement was welcomed and it sparked a rise in real-estate prices on the island. As the controversy progressed, Steinman brought up a competing proposal to build a bridge between Brooklyn and New Jersey directly. Nelson Rockefeller , the Republican candidate for governor of New York, initially supported Steinman's proposal to build
1106-480: A biography from this period is the life of Charlemagne by his courtier Einhard . In Medieval Western India , there was a Sanskrit Jain literary genre of writing semi-historical biographical narratives about the lives of famous persons called Prabandhas . Prabandhas were written primarily by Jain scholars from the 13th century onwards and were written in colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Classical Sanskrit ). The earliest collection explicitly titled Prabandha-
1264-520: A bridge because its construction would almost definitely require the demolition of part of the neighborhood. Boring work for the vehicular tunnels started in November 1930. The 11,000-foot (3,400 m) twin tunnels, projected to be completed by 1937, were to connect Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island with 86th Street in Brooklyn once they were completed. In January 1932, construction of these tunnels
1422-590: A bridge or a tunnel across the Narrows, and in 1939, put forth a plan to expand New York City's highway system. In March of the same year, as a bill for the Battery Bridge was being passed, Staten Island state legislators added a last-minute amendment to the bill, providing for a Narrows bridge. The Narrows crossing was not included in the final version of the Planning Commission's plan, which
1580-655: A bridge to New Jersey, but Moses later persuaded Rockefeller to endorse the bridge to Staten Island. The State Legislature drafted a bill in an effort to change the Brooklyn approach's location to Belt Parkway. However, now-governor Rockefeller vetoed the Belt Parkway bill, and in March 1959, the Board of Estimate officially condemned land along Seventh Avenue to make way for the Gowanus Expressway extension to
1738-693: A combined 1,265,000 short tons (1,129,000 long tons) of metal, more than three times the 365,000 short tons (326,000 long tons) of metal used in the Empire State Building . Because of the height of the towers (693 ft or 211 m) and their distance from each other (4,260 ft or 1,298 m), the curvature of the Earth's surface had to be taken into account when designing the bridge. The towers are not parallel to each other, but are 1 + 5 ⁄ 8 in (41.275 mm) farther apart at their tops than at their bases. When built,
SECTION 10
#17327759875711896-599: A feasibility study for a Narrows tunnel, finding that it would be much cheaper to build a bridge. Moses and mayor William O'Dwyer both supported the Narrows Bridge plan, which was still being referred to as "Liberty Bridge". The city submitted its request to the War Department in July 1948, and a commission composed of three United States Armed Forces branches was convened to solicit the public's opinions on
2054-554: A joint study on the logistics of building and constructing the bridge. Because of restrictions by the TBTA's bondholders, construction could not begin until at least 1957. Frederick H. Zurmuhlen, the Commissioner of Public Works, estimated that the Narrows Bridge would cost $ 200 million total. He encouraged the TBTA to start construction on the bridge as soon as possible in order to reduce congestion on East River crossings to
2212-570: A key figure elected officials depended on. He consistently favored automobile traffic over mass transit . Though Moses served in many of his public jobs without compensation (except for New York City Parks Commissioner), he lived lavishly and enabled similar lifestyles for his allies. Ultimately, Caro presents a complicated picture of Moses. In addition to demonstrating unfavorable aspects of Moses and his work, Caro pays ample tribute to Moses's intelligence, political shrewdness, eloquence, and hands-on, if somewhat aggressive, management style. The book
2370-405: A large segment of the population than other works of that period. The earliest biographical dictionaries initially focused on the lives of the prophets of Islam and their companions , with one of these early examples being The Book of The Major Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi . And then began the documentation of the lives of many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who lived in
2528-407: A motorcade to mark the official opening of the bridge. A 50-cent toll was charged to all motorists crossing the bridge. The Verrazano Bridge's opening was celebrated across Staten Island. Moses did not invite any of the 12,000 workers to the opening, so they boycotted the event and instead attended a mass in memory of the three workers who died during construction. The opening was accompanied by
2686-560: A public necessity should not be provided by private interests. A prior attempt to link Brooklyn and Staten Island, using the Staten Island Tunnel , had commenced in 1923 but was canceled two years later. That tunnel would have extended New York City Subway service from Brooklyn to Staten Island. This proposal was also revived with the announcement of the Liberty Bridge. One of the alternative proposals had
2844-667: A rapid growth, thanks to an expanding reading public. This revolution in publishing made books available to a larger audience of readers. In addition, affordable paperback editions of popular biographies were published for the first time. Periodicals began publishing a sequence of biographical sketches. Autobiographies became more popular, as with the rise of education and cheap printing, modern concepts of fame and celebrity began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such as Charles Dickens (who incorporated autobiographical elements in his novels) and Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography appeared posthumously, quickly becoming
3002-481: A result of the faster-than-anticipated rate of progress, the TBTA decided to open the bridge in November 1964. In preparation for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge's opening, the TBTA fully repainted the structure. The construction process of the bridge had employed an average of 1,200 workers a day for five years, excluding those who had worked on the approaches; around 10,000 individuals had worked on
3160-501: A result, they must be built to accommodate the clearance under the bridge. At mean high water, that clearance is 228 ft (69 m). The RMS Queen Mary 2 , one such vessel built to Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge specifications, was designed with a flatter funnel to pass under the bridge, and has 13 ft (3.96 m) of clearance under the bridge during high tide. Each of the two suspension towers contains around 1 million bolts and 3 million rivets. The towers contain
3318-407: A result. This unidirectional collection remained in effect through 2020, when two-way tolls were restored. The TBTA spent $ 45 million in the 1990s on repairs to the deck, which had been damaged by chloride from the seawater. As part of the project, the top 3 inches (76 mm) of the deck was removed and latex-modified concrete poured in its place. The TBTA also allocated $ 30 million to repaint
SECTION 20
#17327759875713476-408: A six-by-eleven grid. Shafts of reinforced concrete would be built along the inner rim of each opening, and once each section of shaft reached 40 feet (12 m) above water level, cranes with clamshell buckets would dig the sand and mud inside each shaft before sinking the shafts deeper into the water. The Staten Island side's caisson was sunk 105 ft (32 m) into the water, and necessitated
3634-542: A steel grid so that the suspender cables would not rip it apart. Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable derided the new flag as a "simple-minded, vainglorious proposal" and asked, "Does anyone really want to spend $ 850,000 to upstage the Statue of Liberty?" The TBTA stopped collecting tolls for Brooklyn-bound drivers on the Verrazzano Bridge in 1986 and doubled the toll for Staten Island-bound drivers. This
3792-469: A subject's heirs. An unauthorized biography is one written without such permission or participation. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter . At first, biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance. The independent genre of biography as distinct from general history writing, began to emerge in
3950-478: A sudden I said to myself: 'This is completely wrong. This isn't why highways get built. Highways get built because Robert Moses wants them built there. If you don't find out and explain to people where Robert Moses gets his power, then everything else you do is going to be dishonest.'" He found that despite Moses's illustrious career, no biography had been written, save the highly flattering and propagandistic Builder for Democracy in 1952. So he decided to undertake
4108-564: A total of 142,520 mi (229,364 km) in length. Numerous birds nest or roost on the bridge, most notably breeding peregrine falcons . The falcons nest at the top of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge's towers, as well as on the Throgs Neck and Marine Parkway Bridges. As the falcons are endangered, the city places bands on each bird and examines the birds' nesting sites each year. The falcons were discovered on
4266-399: A two-year extension for the start of construction. In a measure passed in March 1955, the city gained control over the approval process for several tasks related to the Narrows bridge's construction, including land acquisition. A little more than a month later, New York governor W. Averell Harriman signed a $ 600 million spending bill authorizing the construction of the Narrows Bridge;
4424-432: A work that exerted considerable influence on the evolution of the genre, was James Boswell 's The Life of Samuel Johnson , a biography of lexicographer and man-of-letters Samuel Johnson published in 1791. While Boswell's personal acquaintance with his subject only began in 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered the entirety of Johnson's life by means of additional research. Itself an important stage in
4582-511: Is Jinabhadra 's Prabandhavali (1234 CE). In Medieval Islamic Civilization ( c. AD 750 to 1258), similar traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad and other important figures in the early history of Islam began to be written, beginning the Prophetic biography tradition. Early biographical dictionaries were published as compendia of famous Islamic personalities from the 9th century onwards. They contained more social data for
4740-436: Is Robert Remini whose books on Andrew Jackson idolize its hero and fends off criticisms. The study of decision-making in politics is important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or societal forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect
4898-463: Is 1,336 pages long (only two-thirds of the original manuscript), and provides documentation for its assertions in most instances, which Moses and his supporters attempted to refute. As a reporter for Newsday in the early 1960s, Caro wrote a long series about why a proposed bridge across Long Island Sound from Rye to Oyster Bay , championed by Moses, would have been inadvisable. It would have required piers so large as to disrupt tidal flows in
The Power Broker - Misplaced Pages Continue
5056-488: Is 300 feet (91 m) offshore from Staten Island, while the eastern tower is 700 feet (210 m) offshore from Brooklyn. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is classified as a fracture critical bridge , making it vulnerable to collapse if parts of the offshore towers were to fail. The March 2024 collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge raised awareness and concern about other bridges nationwide, especially with ship traffic being diverted to other area ports. A few weeks weeks after
5214-401: Is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae ( résumé ), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of
5372-511: Is defined by Miller as a research method that collects and analyses a person's whole life, or portion of a life, through the in-depth and unstructured interview, or sometimes reinforced by semi-structured interview or personal documents. It is a way of viewing social life in procedural terms, rather than static terms. The information can come from "oral history, personal narrative, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". The central aim of biographical research
5530-613: Is owned by Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority bondholders who paid for the bridge at its construction. It is operated by the TBTA, which is an affiliate agency of the MTA, using the business name MTA Bridges and Tunnels . The bridge carries Interstate 278 , which continues onto the Staten Island Expressway to the west and the Gowanus Expressway to the northeast. The Verrazzano, in combination with
5688-403: Is seen through a perspective that is the product of one's contemporary society and as a result, biographical truths are constantly shifting. So, the history biographers write about will not be the way that it happened; it will be the way they remembered it. Debates have also arisen concerning the importance of space in life-writing. Daniel R. Meister in 2017 argued that: Biographical research
5846-411: Is to produce rich descriptions of persons or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the action logics or how persons and structures are interlinked". This method can be used to understand an individual's life within its social context or understand the cultural phenomena. There are many largely unacknowledged pitfalls to writing good biographies, and these largely concern
6004-568: The American Academy of Arts and Letters . In 2010, President Barack Obama , after awarding Caro a National Humanities Medal , said "I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was 22 years old and just being mesmerized, and I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics." In 2010, Caro was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame . David Klatell, former interim dean of
6162-724: The American Institute of Architects conferred a "Special Citation upon Robert Caro ... for reminding us once again, that ends and means are inseparable." In 1986, it was recognized by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 2001 the Modern Library selected it as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century. In 2005, Caro was awarded the Gold Medal in Biography from
6320-552: The Belt Parkway interchange were also rearranged to allow for a ramp to be constructed for the new HOV lane on the upper deck. The parts for this deck were ordered from China because the parts that the MTA required were no longer manufactured in the United States. After the upper deck was replaced, parts of the lower deck are to be replaced, but this necessitates the closure of the lower deck during construction. Hence,
6478-562: The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism , recommended the book to new students to familiarize themselves with New York City and the techniques of investigative reporting. Moses and his supporters considered the book to be overwhelmingly biased against him, and what his supporters considered to be a record of unprecedented accomplishment. Moses put out a 23-page typed statement challenging some of its assertions (for instance, he claimed he never used
The Power Broker - Misplaced Pages Continue
6636-517: The Cross-Bronx Expressway and the way Moses ran roughshod over the interests of residents and businesses of the section of East Tremont the road effectively destroyed. Before publication, Caro, largely unknown at the time, challenged the magazine's legendary editor, William Shawn , over his changes to Caro's prose. It was common for the magazine to edit excerpts to conform to its house style . This did not make allowance for many of
6794-670: The Goethals Bridge and the Staten Island Expressway, created a new way for commuters and travelers to reach Brooklyn, Long Island, and Manhattan by car from New Jersey. At the time of opening, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world ; its 4,260-foot center span, between the two suspension towers, was 60 feet (18 m) longer than the Golden Gate Bridge's center span. Despite being only slightly longer than
6952-588: The Long Island State Park Commission . German professor of sociology Bernward Joerges pointed out in 1999 that "Moses did nothing different on Long Island from any parks commissioner in the country" in designing bridges too low for buses to pass under. Cornell city planning professor Thomas Campanella, in turn, measured the overpasses and found that they were "substantially lower on the Moses parkway" than elsewhere. Fifty years following
7110-748: The Narrows Bridge , the Verrazzano Bridge , and simply the Verrazzano ) 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 New York Harbor with Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean . It is the only fixed crossing of the Narrows. The double-deck bridge carries 13 lanes of Interstate 278 : seven on
7268-564: The Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in the vernacular. Giorgio Vasari 's Lives of the Artists (1550) was the landmark biography focusing on secular lives. Vasari made celebrities of his subjects, as the Lives became an early "bestseller". Two other developments are noteworthy: the development of the printing press in
7426-597: The State Senate and Governor of New York Al Smith taught him how to acquire and wield power in order to achieve his goals. By the 1930s, Moses was well-known and admired as a champion for public parks in the city and state. He then led long-sought projects like the Triborough Bridge (later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Bridge). This came at the price of his earlier integrity. Caro suggests that Moses's younger, idealistic self would not have been pleased with
7584-460: The Victorian era for future generations to read. Up until this point, as Strachey remarked in the preface, Victorian biographies had been "as familiar as the cortège of the undertaker", and wore the same air of "slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied the tradition of "two fat volumes ... of undigested masses of material" and took aim at the four iconic figures. His narrative demolished
7742-403: The mercury vapor fixtures in the bridge's necklace lighting were replaced with energy-efficient light-emitting diodes . This retrofit was completed in 2009, years before LED street lights were installed in the rest of the city. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge's name was originally spelled with one "z". The "Verrazano" name dates to 1960 when governor Rockefeller had signed the bill authorizing
7900-658: The 15th century and the gradual increase in literacy . Biographies in the English language began appearing during the reign of Henry VIII . John Foxe 's Actes and Monuments (1563), better known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs , was essentially the first dictionary of the biography in Europe, followed by Thomas Fuller 's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with a distinct focus on public life. Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General History of
8058-443: The 18th century and reached its contemporary form at the turn of the 20th century. Biography is the earliest literary genre in history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim , writing took its first steps toward literature in the context of the private tomb funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative biographical texts recounting the careers of deceased high royal officials. The earliest biographical texts are from
SECTION 50
#17327759875718216-477: The 19th century – in many cases there was a reversal to the more familiar hagiographical method of eulogizing the dead, similar to the biographies of saints produced in Medieval times. A distinction between mass biography and literary biography began to form by the middle of the century, reflecting a breach between high culture and middle-class culture. However, the number of biographies in print experienced
8374-485: The 26th century BC. In the 21st century BC, another famous biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh . One of the five versions could be historical. From the same region a couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography , departed Abraham . He and his 3 descendants became subjects of ancient Hebrew biographies whether fictional or historical. One of the earliest Roman biographers
8532-496: The Baltimore bridge collapse, in early April, a large container ship had propulsion problems near the Verrazzano and was assisted by several tugboats. Authorities were confident that riprap , or piles of rocks, around the towers' bases would ground a stray ship before it could hit a tower. The diameters of each of the four main suspension cables is 36 in (914 mm). Each main cable is composed of 26,108 wires amounting to
8690-569: The Brooklyn approaches back to Belt Parkway, which was almost identical to the bill Harriman had vetoed. However, the city approved the Seventh Avenue bridge approach in August 1958. The next month, mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. said that the city was committed to building a bridge across the Narrows, but was not committed to the construction of the Seventh Avenue approach. In response, Moses wrote to Wagner that any continuing delays would cause
8848-536: The German artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer . Media scholar Lev Manovich says that such archives exemplify the database form, allowing users to navigate the materials in many ways. General "life writing" techniques are a subject of scholarly study. In recent years, debates have arisen as to whether all biographies are fiction, especially when authors are writing about figures from the past. President of Wolfson College at Oxford University, Hermione Lee argues that all history
9006-613: The Golden Gate Bridge, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge could carry a 75% greater load than the former could. In 1981, the Verrazzano Bridge was surpassed by the Humber Bridge in England, which has a center span of 4,626 ft (1,410 m), as the world's longest suspension bridge. The upper and lower levels are supported by trusses underneath each roadway, which stiffen the bridge against vertical, torsional, and lateral pressure. There are also lateral trusses on either side of
9164-538: The Gowanus Expressway in Brooklyn. On December 31 of that year, the Board of Estimate voted to approve plans for the Seventh Avenue approach, having delayed that vote several times. The approval of the Seventh Avenue approach angered Bay Ridge residents since the construction of the approach would displace 7,500 people. Opposition in Staten Island was far smaller. More than twice as many people were being displaced there, but Staten Island stood to benefit from
9322-433: The Liberty Bridge to a "Crosstown Highway", spanning Brooklyn and Queens and connecting to the proposed Triborough Bridge in northwestern Queens. The city also envisioned a possible connection to the preexisting Manhattan Bridge , connecting Downtown Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan . However, a vote on the planned Liberty Bridge was never taken, as it was blocked by then-Congressman Fiorello H. La Guardia , who believed that
9480-531: The MTA opted to replace the upper deck first to add more capacity. The upper level's new HOV lane opened on June 22, 2017. The MTA dismantled the Staten Island-bound toll booths in 2017 to speed up westbound traffic. This work was done in advance of the reconstruction of tracks around Penn Station , which severely limited rail service into that station and created more vehicular traffic at crossings to Manhattan. The MTA accelerated some components of
9638-481: The Narrows Bridge by way of Seventh Avenue, which would require cutting through the middle of Bay Ridge. This proposal drew opposition from the community, who wanted the approach to follow the Belt Parkway along the Brooklyn shore. These opponents said that the Seventh Avenue alignment would displace over 1,500 families. In February 1958, the New York State Legislature approved a bill to change
SECTION 60
#17327759875719796-400: The Narrows Bridge plan, other than a request that it be allowed to operate the future bridge. Following the War Department's announcement that they would oppose the Narrows bridge, private interests began studying the feasibility of a tunnel under the Narrows. In 1936, the plan for a Narrows crossing was brought up again when now-New York City mayor La Guardia gained authorization to petition
9954-499: The Narrows Bridge. The only tasks remaining before the start of construction were to finalize the design of the Narrows Bridge, and to speed up the construction schedule to meet a 1964 deadline. In April 1959, the bridge was officially renamed after the Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano . This sparked a controversy because the proposed bridge's name only had one "z" while the explorer's name had two "z"s. Surveying work for
10112-602: The Narrows had been proposed as early as 1926 or 1927, when structural engineer David B. Steinman brought up the possibility of such a crossing. At the time, Staten Island was isolated from the rest of New York City, and its only direct connection to the city's other four boroughs was by the Staten Island Ferry to South Ferry in Manhattan , or by ferries to 39th and 69th Streets in Brooklyn . In 1928,
10270-542: The Narrows, with 800-foot-tall towers. Supporters hoped that the new construction would spur development on Staten Island, along with the Outerbridge Crossing and the Bayonne Bridge , which were under construction at the time. The Liberty Bridge would carry vehicles from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn , to an as-yet-undetermined location on Staten Island. On the Brooklyn side, the city planned to connect
10428-416: 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 problems delayed the start of construction until 1959. Designed by Othmar Ammann , Leopold Just , and other engineers at Ammann & Whitney ,
10586-542: The Pyrates (1724), by Charles Johnson, is the prime source for the biographies of many well-known pirates. A notable early collection of biographies of eminent men and women in the United Kingdom was Biographia Britannica (1747–1766) edited by William Oldys . The American biography followed the English model, incorporating Thomas Carlyle 's view that biography was a part of history. Carlyle asserted that
10744-576: The Staten Island Expressway and the Verrazano Bridge, saw its daily average use increase by 75%, or approximately 300,000 trips total, compared to before the Narrows Bridge opened. The Holland Tunnel from New Jersey to Manhattan, and the Staten Island Ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan, both saw decreased vehicle counts after the bridge opened. In summer 1965, Staten Island saw increased patronage at its beaches, facilitated by
10902-477: The Staten Island anchorage, which had only been partially filled with concrete. This strike lasted several months and affected many projects under the city. As construction on the anchorages proceeded, two watertight caissons were sunk into the channel close to either shoreline, so that the bridge's suspension towers could be built atop each caisson. The bases of each caisson consisted of sixty-six circular openings each 17 feet (5.2 m) in diameter, arranged in
11060-634: The TBTA again but was turned down a second time. 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
11218-500: The TBTA decided to erect the lower deck at a cost of $ 22 million. The Verrazzano Bridge had not been expected to carry enough traffic to necessitate a second deck until 1978, but traffic patterns over the previous five years had demonstrated the need for extra capacity. By contrast, a lower deck on the George Washington Bridge, connecting New Jersey and Upper Manhattan, had not been built until 31 years after
11376-423: 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
11534-512: The U.S. Congress for a bridge across the Narrows. Under the new plan, the proposed bridge would charge tolls for motorists, and its $ 50 million cost would be paid off using federal bonds. La Guardia preferred a tunnel instead, and so the next year he requested the New York City Tunnel Authority to review the feasibility of such a crossing. The New York City Planning Commission was amenable to constructing either
11692-467: The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge began in January 1959. Construction officially 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 Rockefeller had been invited to the event, neither he nor Assembly speaker Joseph F. Carlino showed up. In December 1959,
11850-417: The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened, the ferry from Staten Island to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, stopped running, as it was now redundant to the new bridge. Within the first two months of the bridge's opening, 1.86 million vehicles had used the new crossing, 10% more than originally projected, and this netted the TBTA almost $ 1 million in toll revenue. The Goethals Bridge , which connected New Jersey to
12008-553: The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge's reconstruction during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City in 2020, rebuilding the westbound approach ramp from the Gowanus Expressway and adding a fourth lane along that ramp. This also allowed for an extensive renovation of the towers' pedestals. Long-term plans also call for the installation of a bicycle and pedestrian path on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge
12166-414: The War Department announced its opposition to the Narrows Bridge's construction. The War Department's opposition to the bridge plan was based on the fact that a bridge could create a blockage during wartime, a rationale it gave for opposing a Brooklyn–Battery Bridge connecting Red Hook, Brooklyn , with Lower Manhattan. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey did not have a public position regarding
12324-705: The anti-Italian slurs the book attributes to him about Fiorello La Guardia ). Defenses of Moses's career, including museum exhibits and a 2007 book with a "revisionist theme running throughout" ( Robert Moses and the Modern City ) have emerged in explicit reaction to The Power Broker . In 2014, Caro reminisced about his seven years' labor on the book in The New York Times Sunday Book Review . The book remains highly regarded. In 2017, David W. Dunlap described The Power Broker as "the book that still must be read – 43 years after it
12482-607: The author's narrative flourishes, such as single-sentence paragraphs. Caro also complained that much of his work had been compressed. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1975, as well as the Francis Parkman Prize awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best "exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist." On June 12, 1975, The New York Chapter of
12640-693: The best biographies of the 20th century, and has been highly influential on city planners and politicians throughout the United States. The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1975. The Power Broker describes Robert Moses's strong-willed grandmother and mother before detailing his childhood in Connecticut , studies at Yale and the University of Oxford , and early career promoting progressive reform of New York City's corrupt civil service system. According to Caro, Moses's failures there, and later experience working for future New York Mayor Jimmy Walker in
12798-569: The book into two volumes, Gottlieb replied that he "might get people interested in Robert Moses once. I could never get them interested in him twice." So Caro had to cut down his manuscript, which took him months. The Power Broker generated substantial public discussion upon publication, especially after the "One Mile" chapter ran as an excerpt in The New Yorker . The chapter highlighted the difficulties in constructing one section of
12956-509: The book. For the 50th anniversary of the book's publication, the New-York Historical Society hosted an exhibit about The Power Broker in late 2024. In the book Caro claims Moses built overpasses crossing his Long Island Parkways low in height to keep buses from transporting those without private automobiles (i.e. lower class, disproportionately non-white citizens) to the beaches and parks he developed as president of
13114-448: The bridge and approaches gray; this project began in 1998. Workers also repaired the bridge's anchorages and replaced the roadways atop the anchorages. The repairs to the anchorages and electrical systems were completed in 2002, and workers finished repainting the bridge the next year. In addition, a minor project to clean and repaint both of the decks (mostly the bottom deck) took place between 2004 and 2008. Beginning in 2008, all 262 of
13272-416: The bridge as being 237 ft (72 m) above the mean high water level, enough for the 215-foot (66 m) RMS Queen Mary to pass under it. Moses and acting Port Authority Chairman Bayard F. Pope were agreeable to letting either of their respective agencies construct and operate the proposed Narrows Bridge, as long as that agency could do so efficiently. In 1954, the two agencies started conducting
13430-470: The bridge opened on November 21, 1964. The lower deck opened in 1969 to accommodate increasing traffic loads. The bridge was refurbished in the 1990s and again in the 2010s and 2020s. The 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 UK in 1981. The bridge has the 18th-longest main span in
13588-539: The bridge proposal in May 1949, over the vociferous opposition of Bay Ridge residents, on the condition that construction start within five years. By that time, plans for the 6,540-foot (1,990 m) span had been finalized, and the project only needed $ 78 million in financing in order to proceed. This financing was not set to be awarded until 1950, when the Battery Tunnel was completed. Preliminary plans showed
13746-478: The bridge throughout that five-year period. Three men died during the construction of the bridge. The first fatality was 58-year-old Paul Bassett, who fell off the deck and struck a tower in August 1962. Irving Rubin, also 58 years old, died in July 1963, when he fell off of the bridge approach. The third worker who died was 19-year-old Gerard McKee, who fell into the water in October 1963, after slipping off
13904-405: The bridge to be canceled. The bridge's cost had now risen to $ 320 million. After holding a hearing for concerned Bay Ridge residents, the Board of Estimate affirmed the Narrows Bridge plan in October 1958, without any objections. At the same time, it rejected plans for a tunnel under the Narrows, as well as a bridge or tunnel from Brooklyn directly to Jersey City, New Jersey . The Board
14062-494: The bridge was constructed with only one six-lane roadway, Ammann had provided extra trusses to support a potential second roadway underneath the main deck. These trusses, which were used to strengthen the bridge, were a design alteration that was added to many bridges in the aftermath of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse in 1940. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge became so popular among motorists that in March 1969,
14220-500: The bridge's 1931 opening. The new six-lane deck opened on June 28, 1969. Originally, the Verrazzano Bridge's Brooklyn end was also supposed to connect to the planned Cross-Brooklyn Expressway , New York State Route 878 , and JFK Airport , but the Cross-Brooklyn Expressway project was canceled in 1969. On June 26, 1976, to celebrate the United States' 200th anniversary, workers placed a very large U.S. flag on
14378-486: The bridge's cables. The American Bridge Company was selected to construct the cables and deck. The cable-spinning process began in March 1963, and took six months, since 142,520 mi (229,360 km) of bridge cables had to be strung 104,432 times around the bridge. The main cables were hung on both sides of the span, and then suspender cables were hung from the bridge's main cables. The main cables were fully spun by August. In late 1963, builders started receiving
14536-464: The bridge's construction for The New York Times . The book also contains several drawings by Lili Réthi and photographs by Bruce Davidson. The Staten Island approach to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was the first part of the new project to be completed, and it opened in January 1964. The upper deck was opened on November 21, 1964, at a cost of $ 320 million (equivalent to $ 3.144 billion in present dollars). Politicians at all levels of
14694-458: The bridge's name as such. A bill to formally change the bridge's name to the variant with two "z"s was introduced by college student Robert Nash in 2016, but it stalled in early 2018. The New York State Senate voted to change the name of the bridge in June 2018, and the name change was officially signed into law that October. In 2011, the city began a $ 1.5 billion construction project at
14852-416: The bridge's suspension towers were the tallest structures in New York City outside of Manhattan. The towers do not use cross-bracing, unlike similar suspension bridges; instead, there are arched struts near the top of each tower and below the lower deck. At the base of each tower is a concrete-and-granite pedestal, which rests on a caisson measuring 129 by 229 feet (39 by 70 m) across. The western tower
15010-405: The bridge, Moses warned them of steep fines if the expressways were not completed by the time the bridge was finished. An anchorage was built on each side of the Narrows, with each anchorage measuring 229 ft (70 m) long by 129 ft (39 m) wide, and containing a combined 780,000 short tons (700,000 long tons) of steel and concrete. Each anchorage contained sixty-six large holes for
15168-590: 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
15326-468: The bridge. At the time, it was expected to take up to 25 years. The first phase, which cost $ 235 million and lasted until 2017, involved constructing a seventh lane on the upper deck, which was to be used as a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane . The old median barrier was demolished, and the old deck was replaced with orthotropic decking . Related work also included the repainting the bridge's supports with corrosion-resistant paint. The ramps within
15484-411: The cables. The bases of each anchorage are built on glacial sands, reaching 52 feet (16 m) below ground level on the Brooklyn side, and 76 feet (23 m) below ground level on the Staten Island side. Foundation work for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was well underway by 1960, as visitors were able to see the anchorages. A concrete workers' strike in mid-1961 threatened the timely completion of
15642-444: The caissons were sunk completely, the shafts inside each caisson were filled with water, and the bases of the caissons were covered by a sheet of reinforced concrete. The process of constructing the anchorages and caissons took just over two years, and it was complete by the end of 1961. Two separate companies later constructed the modules that would make up the 693 ft-tall (211 m) suspension towers. The Staten Island tower
15800-408: The car and drove home to Long Island , and I kept thinking to myself: 'Everything you've been doing is baloney. You've been writing under the belief that power in a democracy comes from the ballot box . But here's a guy who has never been elected to anything, who has enough power to turn the entire state around, and you don't have the slightest idea how he got it.'" In 1966, Caro's wife Ina changed
15958-506: The catwalk. After McKee's death, workers participated in a five-day strike in December 1963. The strike resulted in temporary safety nets being installed underneath the deck. These nets had not been provided during the four years prior to the strike. The construction of the bridge was chronicled by the writer Gay Talese in his 1964 book The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge . He also wrote several articles about
16116-595: The chambers of commerce in Brooklyn, Queens , Long Island , and Staten Island announced that the Interboro Bridge Company had proposed the future construction of the "Liberty Bridge" to the United States Department of War . The bridge's towers would be 800 feet (240 m) high and it would cost $ 60 million in 1928 dollars. In November 1929, engineers released plans for the 4,500-foot (1,400 m) Liberty Bridge spanning
16274-635: The construction of the Throgs Neck Bridge between Queens and the Bronx ; and the addition of a second level to the George Washington Bridge between Manhattan and New Jersey . Later that year, it was announced that the Narrows Bridge would be part of an expansion to the Interstate Highway System . Although a study on the viability of adding transit service to the Narrows Bridge was commissioned in early 1956, Moses rejected
16432-458: The deck were then hung from the suspender cables. The first piece of the deck was lifted onto the bridge in October 1963. By early 1964, the span was nearly finished, and all that remained was to secure the various parts of the bridge. By this point, plans for new development on Staten Island were well underway, and tourists had come to observe the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The bridge had been scheduled to open in 1965, but as
16590-547: The development of the modern genre of biography, it has been claimed to be the greatest biography written in the English language . Boswell's work was unique in its level of research, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its robust and attractive narrative, and its honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson's life and character – a formula which serves as the basis of biographical literature to this day. Biographical writing generally stagnated during
16748-458: The dredging of 81,000 cubic yards (62,000 m ) of sand and assorted muck. This caisson required 47,000 cu yd (36,000 m ) of concrete, and in March 1961, it became the first of the two caissons to be sunk. The Brooklyn side's caisson required even more work, since it was 170 ft (52 m) deep, displaced 145,000 cu yd (111,000 m ) of muck, and used 83,000 cu yd (63,000 m ) of concrete. Once
16906-653: The family home on Long Island and moved the Caros to an apartment in the Bronx where she had taken a teaching job, so that her husband could continue. Moses "did his best to try to keep this book from being written—as he had done, successfully, with so many previous, stillborn, biographies." After Caro had been working on the book for more than a year, Moses agreed to sit for a series of seven interviews, one lasting from 9:30 A.M. until evening, providing much material about his early life, but when Caro began asking questions (as he later wrote, "for having interviewed others involved in
17064-430: The first publication, an e-book edition was finally released. Caro had resisted offering a digital edition, but was finally convinced to agree to the release of an e-book because of the potential to appeal to new readers who would prefer the convenience of a digital edition, something that was particularly attractive for the 1,286-page four-pound-plus (1.8 kg) volume. Biography A biography , or simply bio ,
17222-403: 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
17380-403: The government, from Brooklyn Borough President Abe Stark to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson , wrote speeches paying tribute to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The opening ceremony was attended by over 5,000 people, including 1,500 official guests. Several dignitaries, involving the mayor, the governor, and the borough presidents of Brooklyn and Staten Island, cut the gold ribbon. They then joined
17538-481: The idea of adding subway tracks onto the new bridge, saying that it would be too costly. In April of that year, New Jersey governor Robert B. Meyner signed a bill that allowed the Port Authority to build the Narrows Bridge and lease it to the TBTA, who would operate the bridge. The TBTA would buy the bridge from the Port Authority in 1967 as part of the agreement. On the Brooklyn side, the Narrows Bridge
17696-433: The initial proposal, the society undertook a public relations campaign to re-establish Giovanni da 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
17854-529: The lives of famous people. The popularity of these forms of biography have led to the proliferation of TV channels dedicated to biography, including A&E , The Biography Channel , and The History Channel . CD-ROM and online biographies have also appeared. Unlike books and films, they often do not tell a chronological narrative: instead they are archives of many discrete media elements related to an individual person, including video clips, photographs, and text articles. Biography-Portraits were created in 2001, by
18012-425: The lives of great human beings were essential to understanding society and its institutions. While the historical impulse would remain a strong element in early American biography, American writers carved out a distinct approach. What emerged was a rather didactic form of biography, which sought to shape the individual character of a reader in the process of defining national character. The first modern biography, and
18170-410: The lower level. The anchorage on the Staten Island side contains a facility for heating cinders that are used to de-ice the bridge deck during winter. Because of thermal expansion of the steel cables, the height of the upper roadway is 12 feet (3.66 m) lower in summer than in winter. The Narrows is the only entry point for large cruise ships and container ships that dock in New York City. As
18328-478: The medieval Islamic world. By the late Middle Ages, biographies became less church-oriented in Europe as biographies of kings , knights , and tyrants began to appear. The most famous of such biographies was Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory . The book was an account of the life of the fabled King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table . Following Malory, the new emphasis on humanism during
18486-454: The mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor in the 1930s to the multivolume Dictionary of American Biography . Nevins also sponsored a series of long political biographies. Later biographers sought to show how political figures balanced power and responsibility. However, many biographers found that their subjects were not as morally pure as they originally thought, and young historians after 1960 tended to be more critical. The exception
18644-713: The myths that had built up around these cherished national heroes, whom he regarded as no better than a "set of mouth bungled hypocrites". The book achieved worldwide fame due to its irreverent and witty style, its concise and factually accurate nature, and its artistic prose. In the 1920s and 1930s, biographical writers sought to capitalize on Strachey's popularity by imitating his style. This new school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and included Gamaliel Bradford , André Maurois , and Emil Ludwig , among others. Robert Graves ( I, Claudius , 1934) stood out among those following Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." The trend in literary biography
18802-442: The north. Staten Islanders viewed the project cautiously, since the Narrows Bridge would provide a connection to the rest of the city, but could also cause traffic congestion through the borough. Moses had only a positive view of the bridge's proposed effects on Staten Islanders, saying that it was vital for the borough's future. In May 1954, the Army's permit for starting construction on the Narrows Bridge lapsed. The Army granted
18960-493: 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 Harriman and mayor Wagner had respectively proposed
19118-533: The only repositories of knowledge and records of the early history in Europe were those of the Roman Catholic Church . Hermits , monks , and priests used this historic period to write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to the church fathers , martyrs , popes , and saints . Their works were meant to be inspirational to the people and vehicles for conversion to Christianity (see Hagiography ). One significant secular example of
19276-457: The opening of the new bridge. By the time of the bridge's first anniversary, 17 million motorists had crossed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, paying $ 9 million in tolls. The bridge had seen 34% more trips than planners had projected. Conversely, 5.5 million fewer passengers and 700,000 fewer vehicles rode the Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan. The Verrazano Bridge was the last project designed by Ammann, who had designed many of
19434-488: The other major crossings into and within New York City. He died in 1965, the year after the bridge opened. The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was also the last great public works project in New York City overseen by Moses. The urban planner envisioned that the Verrazano and Throgs Neck Bridges would be the final major bridges in New York City for the time being, since they would complete the city's expressway system. Although
19592-424: The proposed span. U.S. Representative Donald Lawrence O'Toole , whose constituency included Bay Ridge, opposed the proposal for the bridge because he believed it would damage the character of Bay Ridge, and because the bridge might block the Narrows in case of a war. He cited a poll showing that for every Bay Ridge resident who supported the bridge's construction, 33 more were opposed. The U.S. military approved
19750-538: The rectangular pieces that would make up the roadway deck. The components for the sixty 40-ton slabs were first created in an assembly line in Jersey City. Then, these components were combined in a Bayonne steelworks 5 mi (8 km) from the bridge site, and after the pieces of each slab were assembled, they were floated to the Narrows via barge. Each piece measured 28 ft (8.5 m) high by approximately 115 ft (35 m) wide and long. These pieces of
19908-402: The relation between firstly the individual and the context, and, secondly, the private and public. Paul James writes: The problems with such conventional biographies are manifold. Biographies usually treat the public as a reflection of the private, with the private realm being assumed to be foundational. This is strange given that biographies are most often written about public people who project
20066-475: The release of a commemorative postage stamp, which depicted a ship sailing underneath the new span. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) created a bus route across the bridge to connect Victory Boulevard in Staten Island with the Bay Ridge–95th Street subway station in Brooklyn. This bus service initially saw low patronage, with only 6,000 daily passengers using the route. Five days after
20224-403: The result of the environment, and tended to downplay individuality. The development of psychoanalysis led to a more penetrating and comprehensive understanding of the biographical subject, and induced biographers to give more emphasis to childhood and adolescence . Clearly these psychological ideas were changing the way biographies were written, as a culture of autobiography developed, in which
20382-407: The second wave of feminist activism. She cited Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda , as the "beginning of a new period of women's biography, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready to read not that Zelda had destroyed Fitzgerald , but Fitzgerald her: he had usurped her narrative." Heilbrun named 1973 as the turning point in women's autobiography, with the publication of May Sarton's Journal of
20540-486: The side of the Verrazzano Bridge. The flag, which measured 193 by 366 ft (59 by 112 m), was described in The New York Times as being the size of "a football field and a half" and billed as the world's largest flag. At the time, it was the largest U.S. flag ever made. The flag was supposed to withstand wind speeds of 30 miles per hour (48 km/h), but it ripped apart three days later, when there
20698-533: 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 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,
20856-403: The sound, among other problems. Caro believed that his work had influenced even the state's powerful governor Nelson Rockefeller to reconsider the idea, until he saw the state's Assembly vote overwhelmingly to pass a preliminary measure for the bridge. "That was one of the transformational moments of my life," Caro said years later. It led him to think about Moses for the first time. "I got in
21014-403: The subject's personality. Biographical works are usually non-fiction , but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography. An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or
21172-469: The subjects in question and having examined the records—many of them secret—dealing with them, it was necessary to reconcile the sometimes striking disparity between what he told me and what they told me") the series of interviews was abruptly terminated." Caro's final manuscript ran to about 1,050,000 words. Editor Robert Gottlieb told him that the maximum possible length of a trade book was about 700,000 words, or 1,280 pages. When Caro asked about splitting
21330-553: The subway tunnel going from St. George, Staten Island , to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, before continuing to Governors Island and then Lower Manhattan. Simultaneously, engineers proposed a set of vehicular tunnels from Fort Wadsworth , Staten Island, to 97th Street, Brooklyn. The tubes were being planned in conjunction with the Triborough Tunnel (the modern-day Queens Midtown Tunnel), which would connect Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. The city appropriated $ 5 million for
21488-525: The task himself, beginning the seven-year process of hundreds of interviews meticulously documented as well as extensive original archival research, listed in the notes on sources in an appendix. Originally, Caro believed it would take nine months to research and write the book. He received a yearlong Carnegie fellowship to work on a biography of Moses, and quickly ran out of money. As that time stretched into years, he ran out of money and despaired of ever finishing it. Ina, his wife and research assistant, sold
21646-518: The telling of one's own story became a form of therapy. The conventional concept of heroes and narratives of success disappeared in the obsession with psychological explorations of personality. British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical writing with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians , consisting of biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era : Cardinal Manning , Florence Nightingale , Thomas Arnold , and General Gordon . Strachey set out to breathe life into
21804-501: The top of the Verrazzano Bridge in 1983, though they had started breeding there several years prior. 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
21962-486: The topic of her graduate thesis to write about the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge , while Caro was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University taking courses in urban planning and land use . He found that academics' notions of highway planning contrasted with what he had seen as a reporter. "Here were these mathematical formulas about traffic density and population density and so on," he recalled, "and all of
22120-434: The tunnel, saying that "it is not my time" to construct the tunnel. The cancellation of plans for the Narrows tunnel brought a resurgence of proposals for a bridge across the Narrows. In September 1947, Robert Moses , the chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), announced that the city was going to ask the War Department for permission to build a bridge across the Narrows. Moses had previously created
22278-521: The tunnels in July 1929, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad also pledged funding for the vehicular tunnels. Planning for the vehicular tubes started that month. The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce simultaneously considered all three projects—the bridge, the vehicular tunnels, and the subway tunnel. Community groups on both sides of the Narrows disagreed on which projects should be built first, if at all. Residents of Bay Ridge opposed any plans involving
22436-499: The upper level and six on the lower level. The span is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano , who in 1524 was the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River . Engineer David B. Steinman proposed a bridge across the Narrows in the late 1920s, but plans were deferred over the next twenty years. A 1920s attempt to build a Staten Island Tunnel was aborted, as was a 1930s plan for vehicular tubes underneath
22594-541: The voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the organizational structures of bureaucracies. A more promising approach is to locate a person's ideas through intellectual history, but this has become more difficult with the philosophical shallowness of political figures in recent times. Political biography can be frustrating and challenging to integrate with other fields of political history. The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to change character during
22752-421: The ways Moses circumvented limits on his power in his middle and late career, such as creating and expanding New York's public authorities . Moses is portrayed as a bureaucrat who gradually shifted his focus from enacting improvements to exerting control. Because of Moses's positive reputation with citizens, track record of successful projects, and positions on various boards, he became crucial to construction and
22910-530: The work survive. Another well-known collection of ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On the Lives of the Caesars") by Suetonius , written about AD 121 in the time of the emperor Hadrian . Meanwhile, in the eastern imperial periphery, Gospel described the life of Jesus . In the early Middle Ages (AD 400 to 1450), there was a decline in awareness of the classical culture in Europe. During this time,
23068-475: The world, as well as the longest in the Americas. When the bridge was officially named in 1960, it was misspelled "Verrazano-Narrows Bridge" due to an error in the construction contract; the name was officially corrected in 2018. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge collects tolls in both directions, although only westbound drivers paid a toll from 1986 to 2020 in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion. A bridge across
23226-550: Was Cornelius Nepos , who published his work Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae ("Lives of outstanding generals") in 44 BC. Longer and more extensive biographies were written in Greek by Plutarch , in his Parallel Lives , published about 80 A.D. In this work famous Greeks are paired with famous Romans, for example, the orators Demosthenes and Cicero , or the generals Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar ; some fifty biographies from
23384-439: Was a result of a bill introduced by Guy V. Molinari , the U.S. representative for Staten Island, as part of an initiative to reduce traffic that accumulated at the toll booth on Staten Island. The one-way toll was initially intended to be part of a six-month pilot program, but resulted in permanent changes to traffic flows on the Verrazzano Bridge. The crossing saw more Brooklyn-bound traffic and less Staten Island-bound traffic as
23542-409: Was a wind speed of 16 mph (26 km/h). The flag had been stuck against the bridge's suspender cables, so any slight wind would have caused the cables to make tears in the flag. A second flag was created in 1980 for the July 4 celebration that year. This flag was even larger at 411 by 210 ft (125 by 64 m) (an area of 71,000 sq ft (6,600 m )). The new flag was placed along
23700-612: Was accompanied in popular biography by a sort of "celebrity voyeurism", in the early decades of the century. This latter form's appeal to readers was based on curiosity more than morality or patriotism. By World War I , cheap hard-cover reprints had become popular. The decades of the 1920s witnessed a biographical "boom." American professional historiography gives a limited role to biography, preferring instead to emphasize deeper social and cultural influences. Political biographers historically incorporated moralizing judgments into their work, with scholarly biography being an uncommon genre before
23858-627: Was approved in 1941. In 1943, the New York City Board of Estimate allocated $ 50,000 toward a feasibility study of the tunnel. By this time, Bay Ridge residents now opposed the tunnel plan as well, because they feared that the tunnel's construction would lower the quality of life in that neighborhood. After the war ended in 1945, the Planning Commission estimated that construction of the Narrows Tunnel would cost $ 73.5 million. However, by then, La Guardia had turned against
24016-517: Was building the Triborough Bridge, Midtown Tunnel, and Golden Gate Bridge at the time, showed interest in designing the proposed Narrows bridge, which would be the world's longest bridge if it were built. The city approved the construction of a rapid transit tunnel under the Narrows in December 1933. This tunnel was approved in conjunction with the proposed Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel connecting Red Hook with Lower Manhattan. In April 1934,
24174-488: Was built by Bethlehem Steel , and the Brooklyn tower was built by the Harris Structural Company. The first piece of the towers, a 300-foot piece of the tower on the Staten Island side, was lifted into place in October 1961, and this tower was topped out by September 1962. The Brooklyn tower started construction in April 1962. When the towers were fully erected, workers began the process of spinning
24332-428: Was needed. 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
24490-566: Was originally supposed to connect to the Circumferential (Belt) Parkway , but in early 1957, Harriman vetoed a bill that stipulated that the main approach connect to the Belt Parkway. By May 1957, an updated location for the Brooklyn anchorage had been agreed on. The anchorage was now to be located at Fort Lafayette , an island coastal fortification built next to Fort Hamilton at the southern tip of Bay Ridge. Moses also proposed expanding Brooklyn's Gowanus Expressway and extending it to
24648-645: Was published – to understand how New York really works." In 2020, the book made frequent appearances as the "ultimate signifier of New York political sophistication" on the bookshelves of U.S. journalists and politicians appearing in TV interviews from their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic . Several New York politicians, including city comptroller Brad Lander , City Council member Justin Brannan , state senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos , and former Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer , have claimed to have read
24806-488: Was put on hold indefinitely due to a lack of money. The construction work did not go beyond an examination of shoreline on the Brooklyn side. In February 1933, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill authorizing the construction of a suspension bridge across the Narrows. With this approval, the Interboro Bridge Company hoped to start constructing the bridge by the end of the year, thereby creating jobs for 80,000 workers. Structural engineer Othmar H. Ammann , who
24964-483: Was set to vote on the Seventh Avenue approach in mid-December, but the federal government stated that it would only agree to the bridge's construction if the Seventh Avenue approach had 12 lanes, with six on each level. The federal government was already paying for two highway improvements on both sides of the proposed bridge: the Clove Lakes Expressway ( Staten Island Expressway ) on Staten Island, and
#570429