George Washington Bridge, November 16, 1937.

Twice as long as any previous suspension bridge, the George Washington Bridge was an engineering marvel when designed in 1923 by Othmar Ammann, a Swiss-born architect and engineer. Construction on the bridge, which included a 3,500-foot center span suspended between two 570-foot steel towers, commenced in 1927.

The four main cables, a yard in diameter, are each composed of a single strand carried back and forth across the river 61 times. The New York anchorage, where the main cables are anchored, consists of 110,000 cubic yards of concrete weighing 260,000 tons. On the New Jersey side, the main cables are attached directly into the rock of the Palisades fronting the Hudson River.

The bridge opened to traffic in 1931. In 1932 more than 5.5 million vehicles used the original six-lane roadway.