The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge 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 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.
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 Leopold Just, 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 the Americas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrazzano-Narrows_Bridge