A good friend of mine tells me that there is a little old man
who walks across the George Washington Bridge every day in
search of cracks. Winter and summer, he trudges the 4,760-foot
span, inspecting each steel cable, from Washington Heights to
the Palisades. I have to wonder about the old geezer—whether
every now and then he wishes he’d find a big crack, or if he
ever imagines the possible perils that might endanger the steel
edifice. Or perhaps my friend lies, and no such man exists. The
George Washington Bridge, like the Brooklyn Bridge before and
the Verrazano after it, was at one time the longest in the
world. The 1934 completion of civil engineer Othmar Ammann’s
design signaled a moment of triumph in an otherwise dark decade.
The bridge was not intended to be the only one crossing the
Hudson. As far back as the Gilded Age, multiple bridges were
planned to span the distance between Manhattan and New Jersey.
Several of these plans later came to fruition through the
construction of tunnels. Yet there is a