Biggest Bridge

Last week the first bridge across the lower Hudson River was ready. It joins Manhattan at 178th Street to Fort Lee, N. J., near which are Englewood, Edgewater, Ridgefield Park, Leonia.

A warship lay anchored in the river. Airplanes streamed about. Soldiers, sailors, marines and police paraded on to the bridge. Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his predecessor, Alfred Emanuel Smith of New York motored to the bridge centre, where they encountered Governor Morgan Foster Larson of New Jersey. Mayor James John Walker of New York City stayed away. He went, instead, to the Colgate-New York University football game.

Two long ribbons tied by a bow marked the centre of the span and the boundary of two sovereign States. Governor Roosevelt grasped one end of the bow, Governor Larson the other. The ribbons parted. A police lieutenant fell on his face, in a heart attack. A patrolman fainted. Two schoolboys roller-skated across the bridge from the Manhattan side, the first passengers from New York. A New Jersey woman pushed her baby carriage to Manhattan, first passenger from her State. The bridge was open.

The bridge, called the George Washingon Memorial Bridge, is a suspension bridge and contains the longest (3,500 ft.) span in the world. The supporting towers on each side of the Hudson reach 635 ft. above water level. Four steel wire cables, each cable an even yard in diameter, connect the towers and brace the roadways.

More astounding than the vast engineering, under Chief Engineer Othmar Hermann Ammann, was the economy and speed of construction. The bridge was finished in four and a half years--eight months ahead of schedule. Construction appropriations were $60,000,000; actual costs considerably below. This so amazed Governor Roosevelt that at the dedication he exclaimed: "For its planning, execution and sound financing, the commissioners of the Port of New York Authority must be credited with a high and unselfish devotion to the public good. . . . Their methods are charting the course toward the more able and honorable administration of our nation's affairs--a course they have proved can be safely steered through political waters with intelligence and integrity at the helm."

Port Authorities are new phenomena in U. S. governmental administration. They enable contiguous States to cooperate on undertakings which benefit both. Such Authorities are in effect corporations. Like governmental bodies and private corporations they may borrow money and sell bonds for their projects. For construction of the George Washington Memorial Bridge the Port of New York Authority borrowed $10,000,000 from the treasuries of New Jersey and New York State, and sold $50,000,000 in bonds to the public. The $60,000,000 will be repaid with interest by 1950. Tolls will make up the funds.

The successful engineering of this 3,500-ft. suspended span has already had its effect. San Francisco for a long time wanted a bridge across the Golden Gate. Construction seemed impossible. Now a bridge with a 4,200-ft. span has been authorized, financed and designed. Construction will soon begin. Another, greater suspension bridge is also discussed for New York City, a 5,000-ft. structure between Long Island and Staten Island. Two bridges already join Staten Island and New Jersey, and a third, the Kill Van Kull Bridge, world's longest arched span, will be completed the end of this month.

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