Today in Technology History
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November 12
This picture shows various officials, including the governors of New York and New Jersey, inside the Holland Tunnel on November 12, 1927. Before the tunnel was built, the border between the two states had just been an imaginary line that only appeared on maps; now, though, the border appeared in tile on the tunnel walls. Today is the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Holland Tunnel.
As automobile traffic increased in the second decade of the twentieth century, the ferry boats that carried cars back and forth between New York City and New Jersey couldn't keep up with demand. Government authorities decided to construct some sort of artery for cars to cross the Hudson River.
Although there was some early support for a bridge, that idea was quashed since the bridge would have to be unreasonably high in order to let boat traffic pass beneath. Instead, the governments agreed to put a tunnel under the river -- the world's first long underwater tunnel designed for vehicular traffic, as opposed to foot or rail traffic.
In 1919, the commission in charge of the tunnel accepted the design proposed by Clifford M. Holland, a brilliant young engineer with plenty of tunnel-building expertise. Holland's design called for two iron tubes, each wide enough for two lanes of car traffic moving in one direction.
Holland managed every aspect of the tunnel project, and he led the team that solved the project's most important engineering question: how to keep the long tunnel from filling with poisonous automobile fumes. The solution was to build a ventilation system with 84 fans that were about 80 feet in diameter. The fans, housed in tall buildings on both sides of the tunnel, were capable of moving about 3.6 million cubic feet of air per minute. The ventilation system could replace all the air in the tunnel in 90 seconds.
Unfortunately, the overworked Holland died less than 48 hours before work crews from the New Jersey and New York sides met in the tunnel. His successor as chief engineer, Milton Freeman, also died soon after taking over. So the tunnel was named after Holland and the entrance plaza on the New York side was named after Freeman.
On November 12, 1927, the tunnel was officially opened in ceremonies involving the U.S. president, the governors of the two states, and hundreds of mayors. About 20,000 pedestrians walked through the tunnel on the first day, shouting and singing just to hear their voices echo off the walls.
Then, just after midnight, the first auto traffic was allowed into the tunnel. (Holland's and Freeman's widows were in the second car to enter the tunnel.) Even though the maximum capacity of the tunnel was then estimated at 50,000 cars per day, in the first 24 hours of auto traffic about 52,000 cars went through the tunnel, each paying the 50 cent toll. Today, the tunnel sometimes carries twice that much traffic in a single day -- and the toll is six dollars.
Related links:
Use these links to read more about the Holland Tunnel:
Click here to read more about the Holland Tunnel's ventilation system.
One of the buildings that houses the Holland Tunnel's ventilation system was used in the "Men in Black" movies as the exterior of the MiB headquarters. Click here to read more.
Click here and here to read about the builders of the world's first true underwater tunnel, under the Thames River in London.
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