Jackson - Highway under the Hudson: a history of the Holland Tunnel

Highway under the Hudson

Robert W. Jackson

A History of the Holland Tunnel

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
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2011 by New York University
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson, Robert W. (Robert Wendell), 1950
Highway under the Hudson : a history of the Holland Tunnel/
Robert W. Jackson.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8147-4299-0 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-8147-4504-5
(ebook) ISBN 978-0-8147-4503-8 (ebook)
1. Holland Tunnel (New York, N.Y.) History. 2. Tunnels New York
(State) New York Design and construction History 20th century.
3. City planning New York (State) New York History 20th century.
4. Urban transportation New York (State) New York History 20th
century. 5. New York (N.Y.)History18981951. 6. New York (N.Y.)
Economic conditions 20th century. 7. New York (N.Y.) Politics and
government 1898 1951. I. Title.
TA820.N44J33 2011
388.411 dc23 2011028188

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Illustrations appear in two groups, following

THE HOLLAND TUNNEL is one of two highway tunnels under the Hudson River between northern New Jersey and Manhattan Island in New York City (the Lincoln Tunnel is the other), and it was the first constructed. The one tunnel is actually composed of two connected parallel tubes, which are about 35 feet apart under the river but divert even farther as they rise to street level so that the entrances and exits at each end are separated by about two blocks to reduce traffic congestion. The north tube, with two lanes of westbound traffic, is 8,558 feet long from portal to portal. The south tube, with two lanes of eastbound traffic, is 8,371 feet long from portal to portal. Each tube is 29.5 feet in external diameter. The two tubes are commonly referred to as a singular facility, as they often will be in this history, in recognition of their physical connection and unified function.

When the Holland Tunnel opened in 1927, it was the longest and largest vehicular tunnel in the world, and the first with a ventilation system specifically designed to accommodate motor-vehicular traffic. Created in response to extensive research which determined the amount of carbon monoxide produced by motor vehicles, the safe limits of human exposure to this deadly gas, and the most cost-efficient method of providing fresh air and exhausting polluted air, the Holland Tunnels ventilation system became the model for, or informed the design of, virtually every vehicular tunnel built thereafter.

The Holland Tunnels unprecedented length, size, and ventilation system are enough to make it historically significant as a great achievement in civil and mechanical engineering. The role it has played from the day it opened to the present as a vital link in the transportation system of the New York metropolitan area also makes it a historical landmark of continuing importance. It proved the viability of vehicular tunnels as alternatives to the ferry-and-barge-based transportation systems of the Port of New York. As the automobile came of age and automobile registrations experienced explosive growth in New York and New Jersey, the tunnel met the need for an alternative to railroad-based transportation. In fact, the tunnels very existence created a new need for superhighways in New York and New Jersey to handle the traffic that it generatedhighways that were the first of their kind.

From 1904, when the first New York City subway line opened, to the early 1920s, most people relied on the subway, streetcars, and their own feet to get about in Manhattan. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the upper class used horse-drawn carriages or, like their upper-middle-class counterparts, occasionally used horse-drawn cabs. Horses also provided the motive power for commercial wagons, by which almost all freight moved throughout the city. The trade-off for dependence on the horse was the near-constant sight and smell of horse manure and urine on city streets, and the not-infrequent dead horse lying temporarily untended on the cobblestones. Gradually, however, the problematic presence of horses was supplanted by the also unpleasant sight, smell, and noise of motor vehicles.

In 1901, New York became the first state to require registration of motor vehicles, with New Jersey following in 1903. But it was not until 1921 that all states required annual registration of new vehicles, and reporting practices varied considerably among states. It is difficult, therefore, to know exactly how many motor vehicles were registered before 1921, much less how many existed (not all owners in the early years followed registration laws), but statistics available from the United States Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provide a reasonable overview of trends. According to FHWA data, during the first two decades of the twentieth century, New York consistently led all states in the number of motor-vehicle registrations, and New Jersey was near the top of the list.

In 1905, the year that the first gasoline-powered buses in the United States began operating on Fifth Avenue in New York, there were 77,800 motor-vehicle registrations in the United States.

In January 1906, Henry Ford introduced his Model N at the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers Automobile Show in Madison Square Garden, one of fifty-six different models displayed.

By the end of 1907, gasoline-powered taxis virtually replaced horse-drawn cabs in the Battery area of Lower Manhattan. There were 143,200 total new motor-vehicle registrations in the United States that year, including 2,900 trucks. In New York State, there were 11,750 registrations, including 240 trucks, and in New Jersey, there were 4,550 registrations, including 100 trucks. In 1907, annual registration figures reflected only new registrations and not the total number of vehicles already registered and in use.

According to the best estimates compiled by the Automobile Directories Company of New York City, there were approximately 230,000 motor vehicles registered and in use in the United States, as of September 1, 1917. Counting cumulative registrations from 1901 to 1907, New York led all states, with approximately 47,000 total automobile registrations, and New Jersey was second, with approximately 32,000. (From this point forward, only the number of vehicles newly registered each year will be reported.)

A year later, Henry Ford introduced the Model T passenger vehicle, which was soon to become nearly ubiquitous throughout the country. It was the archetype of the mass-produced, affordable, easy-to-maintain, middle-class car.

In January 1912, self-starters were introduced in a number of passenger vehicles during Phase I of the Twelfth National Automobile Show in Manhattans Madison Square Garden, and a large number of models had electric lights, replacing the troublesome kerosene lamps of earlier models. These improvements marked an important advance in the practicality and usefulness of automobiles. The greatest leap forward in design, however, appeared during Phase II of the show, which brought in large crowds to inspect the wide variety of trucks then being manufactured. In previous years, commercial vehicles had been relegated to the basement or secondary viewing areas of the show, while pleasure cars, as passenger automobiles were still called, dominated the prime floor space. Now trucks received greater attention, and two weeks were devoted solely to commercial vehicles after the passenger-vehicle phase of the show ended. Harry S. Houpt, one of the show organizers, said, Businessmen have seen with their own eyes that the truck has passed out of the experimental stage, and is a vital factor in their transportation systems.