Most people in the borough had not been born when the Queens-Midtown Tunnel opened to drivers on Nov. 15, 1940.<\/p>\n
And now the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has decided to throw a sort of anniversary party.<\/p>\n
Nellie Hankins, manager of the MTA\u2019s bridges and tunnels historical archives, said the route all take for granted today was a massive \u2014 and popular \u2014 undertaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was first proposed by the Manhattan borough president in the 1920s,\u201d Hankins told the Chronicle. The Holland tunnel was under construction but hadn\u2019t been completed The idea was to build a tunnel from Midtown Manhattan into Queens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hankins said there also was talk of other projects, such as a tunnel beneath Manhattan directly to New Jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat didn\u2019t come to fruition,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Queens-Midtown\u2019s groundbreaking in 1936 was a huge deal, Hankins said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFDR was there,\u201d she said of the president. \u201cPeople were really excited about the scope of it. And New Jersey was getting all their infrastructure. People thought Long Island should as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took some doing. New York City began the project but then ran out of money. The state came in and took over. President Roosevelt came through with some New Deal money, securing not only an important project, but work for thousands of people who needed it in the throes of the Great Depression.<\/p>\n
Hankins said there were an estimated 18 million work hours put into the actual construction, and twice that number in related jobs for manufacturing, shipping and even secretarial work.<\/p>\n
It was designed by Ole Singstad, who also worked on the Holland, Lincoln and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels among others.<\/p>\n
While not an eye-popping engineering marvel like say, the Brooklyn Bridge, Hankins said it still was a massive undertaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t groundbreaking engineering \u2014 pun intended \u2014 but he knew what he was doing and he did it well,\u201d Hankins said.<\/p>\n
As to the opposition that would spring up against any such project today, Hankins said it was a different time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were excited about it,\u201d she said. \u201cNewspapers were excited about it.\u201d So too, of course, were the New York City Chamber of Commerce and other business and civic groups.<\/p>\n
The Long Island Rail Road had a few gripes \u2014 Hankins said the massive rail yards presently adjacent to the Queens end are exactly where they were in 1936.<\/p>\n
She said the Queens side had been light industrial and manufacturing, with low-rise housing and the accompanying stores, taverns and barbershops.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were really careful about what they disrupted,\u201d Hankins said. \u201cMoving people and businesses is expensive.\u201d Hankins said the MTA still has the building-by-building photographs employees took of surrounding neighborhoods in preparation.<\/p>\n
And almost as soon as it opened with four million cars the first year, came World War II with gas rationing, rubber shortages and Detroit switching to making tanks.<\/p>\n
There also were worries about sabotage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen World War II stopped, it picked up again,\u201d Hankins said.<\/p>\n
She said the tunnel would prove to increase population, business and even access to Long Island\u2019s recreational facilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contributions were over time, I think a little more gradual than people realize.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people in the borough had not been born when the Queens-Midtown Tunnel opened to drivers on Nov.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[881,2533,9,24,63,122,124,24312,123,608],"class_list":["post-46233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-history","tag-metropolitan-transportation-authority","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-midtown-tunnel","tag-queens-news","tag-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}