A bridge too far?
Everyone from greater New York knows that there are four boroughs and one never to go to. That fifth is the Charlie Brown of the Boroughs, Staten Island, though the Sopranos did give it some cache. One went to Staten Island from the other Boroughs because you were headed south on the Jersey Turnpike. It was a long, aggravating drive. Then came the Verrazzano Bridge.
As a kid, it looked like something out of a post-modern comic book. Early on, my parents, both experienced drivers, got the willys as they paid the fifty-cent toll (now nine and a half dollars) and begin their climb higher and higher over of the Narrows discovered by Giovanni da Verrazano who every Columbus Day whose name starts heated discussions over whether he or Columbus should have the celebratory day. No big deal to me. Italian is Italian. If one guy had been named Schwartz or O’Reilly I could see the argument, but I digress.
If one had to choose a word to describe the bridge it would be the word “big.” Until the Brits outdid it, the Verrazzano was the biggest in the world. It is still the biggest in the Americas. Before I get too much further along, let me explain to you why suddenly I’m writing about a bridge. In a recent edition of the venerable Brooklyn Eagle, it was announced that a pedestrian walkway is being built on the bridge. (‘not for the faint of heart.)