Holland Tunnel

President Coolidge stretched forth his arm to touch the golden lever of the presidential telegraphic instrument. He pressed, and a current of electricity flowed to Manhattan and directly across the Hudson river to Jersey City. At each place, in sight of thousands of crowding spectators, the current caused a pair of great U. S. flags slowly to separate. The Holland Vehicular Tunnel officially became open for inspection.

The spectators propelled themselves as speedily as possible into its white tiled maw. Seven hours later, at one minute after midnight, the motor vehicles for which the tunnel was built began to pass through from the New York and the New Jersey sides. In the second motor car to pay its toll fee*was Mrs. Clifford Milburn Holland, whose husband died as chief engineer of the tunnel. With her was Mrs. Milton H. Freeman, whose husband also died as chief engineer.

The Tunnel. The Holland Vehicular Tunnel consists of two tubes made of cast iron rings 29 ft. 6 in. in external diameter and lined with concrete. Other statistics:

Length/- ....................................................9.250 ft.

Distance between portals ...................... 8,463 ft.

Length under river ...................... 5,480 ft.

Number of roadways ........................................ 2

Roadway width ..........................................20ft

Headroom ..........................................13 1/2ft

Hourly vehicle capacity ..................................... 3,800

Maximum daily capacity ................................... 46,000

Yearly capacity .................................................. 15,000,000

Excavation ................................................... 500,000 cu. yd.

Cost .................................................................... $48,400,000

The Holland Tunnel's greatest problem was not its construction, but its ventilation--how to avoid the poisonous carbon monoxide gas exhausted from motor trucks and cars. Ventilation experiments at Yale, the University of Illinois and the U. S. Bureau of Mines showed that more than four parts of the gas in 10,000 of air was dangerous. To prevent disaster absolutely Chief Engineer Holland installed 84 ventilating fans in four 10 story buildings, two on each side of the Hudson. Part of them blow fresh air into the tunnel floor through vents, others suck vitiated air through ducts in the tunnel ceiling. Thus they change the tunnel air completely 42 times an hour and but 56 of the fans are needed to do so. Fire hazard is prevented by watchmen stationed every few score feet; and there are tunnel fire engines at each entrance.

The Builder. The states of New York and New Jersey named the tunnel after Clifford Milburn Holland. In 1906, when he was 23, he left Harvard with both A. B. and B. S. degrees. At once he went to Manhattan, saying: "I am going into tunnel work and I am going to put a lot more into it than I'll ever be paid for." In his early 30's he was building simultaneously four street railway tunnels under the East River, between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Over the Hudson River, on the other side of Manhattan, there is no bridge. Ferries, lighters and under-river railroads carry the traffic. A few years ago there was an ice jam in the river and Manhattan lacked coal although there were heaps on the New Jersey side. That situation finally induced the two state legislatures to order the tunnel built. Their tunnel commissions chose Holland's plans and made him chief engineer. His wife last week told how he worked: "Evening after evening he remained at work. Our dinner hour was always uncertain. If we induced him to attend the theatre, he always went back to the tunnel afterward, spending hours in the field offices and personally supervising the work." It exhausted him and he died, 1924, of heart failure. The states made his tunnel a horizontal shaft over his memory.-

*Fifty cents for a car, 25 cents for a motorcycle, up to two dollars for a heavy truck. /-About 1 3/4mi., longest of its kind in the world. Under the River Thames, at London, are Blackwall and Rotherhithe Tunnels, each 1 1/4 mi. long. Other important underwater vehicular tunnels are at Glasgow and Hamburg. The longest tunnel in the world, regardless of purpose, is the Shandaken Tunnel in New York State--28.l mi. It carries water to the Ashokan Reservoir.

*New York City has named the Plaza before its tunnel entrance Freeman Square, after Milton H. Freeman, who succeeded Holland as chief engineer and died four months after him. The chief engineer who completed the job is 45-year-old Ole Singstad.