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Six-Million Cubic Feet of Fresh Air: Ventilation Towers of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
Construction was begun on the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in 1940. Initially, Robert Moses had pushed for a bridge in the same place, but those plans were scrapped by the Dept. of War citing both security concerns (the bridge would be close to Brooklyn's Navy Yard) and citizen's outcry to preserve the Battery, which was largely undeveloped at the time (an unstated reason was Moses' feud with President Roosevelt.) Instead of a bridge, a tunnel was built to connect the two boroughs. Four towers ventilate the two-mile-long strip of underground highway, refreshing air every 90-seconds.
Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel began construction in 1940. It required more than one million pounds of dynamite to clear the hard rock at the bottom of the Hudson and East River.
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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
The tunnel was proposed as an alternative to Robert Moses' plan of a double segmented suspension bridge, called the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge. At the center of the Bridge, a spiraling concrete ramp would have allowed drivers to exit mid-way onto Governor's Island. The bridge was designed by Othmar Ammann, whose work includes the George Washington Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, among others.
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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel Vent Shaft
Much to Moses' dismay, plans for his Brooklyn-Battery Bridge were scrapped in favor of a tunnel that wouldn't be as much of a security risk for the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard. Governor's Island, which sits at the mid-point of the tunnel, was outfitted with an octagonal ventilation tower rather than the ramp that the bridge proposed.
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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
Designed by McKim, Mead, & White, the 125-foot by 125-foot tower is clad in granite, though it was originally designed in glazed brick. The elegant building appears as a floating monument off the shore of Governor's Island, also serving as a marker of the lowest point of the tunnel at 140 feet below the surface.
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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
As shown in this rendering, the second ventilation tower sits at the entry to the Brooklyn side of the tunnel. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel's ventilation system includes 53 fans, each 8-feet in diameter.
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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel is the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in North America.
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74 Greenwich Street
According to the New York Times on November 22nd, 1936, the ventilation tower on the Manhattan end, in Battery Park would "harmonize with the simple beauty of the near-by barge office and blend into the background of the modern office buildings north of Battery Park. It will be a landmark in the architecture of the city." Today, the tower is dwarfed by its neighbors: a nestled landmark of Battery Park pre-World Trade Center.
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Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel
Today, the ventilation towers are the only visible evidence of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which carries an estimated fifty thousand vehicles a day.
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