Flashback: Underwater Boulevard To Staten Island

The Library of Congress just added a whole slew of old New York Tribune covers to their Flickr account. This one caught our eye: an underwater boulevard connecting Brooklyn and Staten Island! The cover read: "Now for a boulevard under the sea... Ambitious plan for a tunnel 100 feet wide and 10,000 feet long, easy to approach at either end for vehicles of all kinds, and calculated to keep commuters within city limits instead of letting them get away to Jersey and Westchester." View the full cover after the jump; the edition is from September 18, 1910. Also of note: this proposed new thoroughfare to relieve traffic congestion on Fifth Avenue.

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By Jen Carlson in Arts and Events on January 30, 2010 2:05 PM

Comments [rss]

jgonzz

And people would want to go to Staten Island for what reason..?

longacre

...easy to approach at either end for vehicles of all kinds...

Interesting point, since it has been alleged that Robert Moses had the Verrazano Bridge built with steep approaches specifically so trains could never run on it.

gawzmta

You'd be forgiven for thinking that, given Moses' history, but the truth is that clearance over the water required the destruction of a large swath of Bay Ridge to begin with, and any attempts to increase the grade were needed to mitigate the damage as much as possible.

The technical documentation compiled by Othmar Ammann clearly shows this.

Think2wice

A lot of buzz online lately about thwarted attempts to tunnel under the Narrows.

Outter Burrougher

I love the people walking through the tunnel!

Think2wice

"Verily m'dear, this is a most resplendent tableau for an evening constitutional," said the right-honourable J. Phineas Bartelby, Esq. and his laudanum-addicted wife Hortense.