THE VERRAZZANO BRIDGE IN NEW YORK

The Verrazzano Bridge was inaugurated on November 21st 1964 and it was dedicated to the navigator from Greve, Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European to enter in the bay of New York.

To be precise, the bridge was baptised using the spelling of the name as it was in the 15th Century with one "z" – Verrazano.

The bridge was designed by the 80year old Swiss engineer Othmar Hermann Ammann, already famous for his participation in the project for the Golden Gate Bridge at San Francisco. The cost of the structure of the bridge was $ 320.000.000 at the time and it took 12,000 workers to build it.

The towers of the bridge are 700 feet high and the distance between them is greater at the top in respect to the base in order to compensate for the curve of the Earth.

The bridge joins the two military forts which in the past protected the entrance to New York by way of water: Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn and Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island.

The New York City Marathon, one of the most important sport events in the world in which 35.000 athletes from all over the globe participate every year, starts from the Verrazzano Bridge and this is in fact the only time that the bridge is open to pedestrians.

The bridge often appears in images of the city of New York and it is considered to be one of it’s symbols. Many people will also remember the scenes from the film Saturday Night Fever, with John Travolta which were shot on the bridge.