Planning A vehicular tunnel under the
East River between
Manhattan and
Brooklyn was proposed by the
New York Board of Trade and Transportation in 1925 in response to growing truck
traffic congestion in
Lower Manhattan. The tunnel would have been located between the
Manhattan Bridge and the
Brooklyn Bridge. A tunnel that specifically connected
the Battery in Manhattan with
Red Hook in Brooklyn, passing underneath the East River and
Governors Island south of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, was first proposed by Brooklyn Borough president
James J. Byrne in 1926. However, this plan initially did not receive support. Albert Goldman, the New York City Commissioner of Plant and Structures, brought up the plan again in January 1929. In February 1930, the city publicized plans for a six-lane vehicular tunnel from West Street, Manhattan, to Hamilton Avenue, Brooklyn. At the time, ferry service along that path was slow and unreliable. In November of that year, the Board of Estimate referred the Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnel plan to the
New York City Board of Transportation (NYCBOT), who was tasked with surveying the site of the tunnel. At the time, the tunnel would have cost $75 million (equivalent to $ in ), including land acquisition if it included two three-lane tunnels. The tunnels itself would have cost $58 million (equivalent to $ in ) if they were three lanes or $50 million (equivalent to $ in ) if two lanes. The next year, NYCBOT announced that the construction the proposed tunnel was estimated to cost $60 million (equivalent to $ in ), assuming that the tunnels were in diameter with roadways and a clearance. In October 1933, the Board of Estimate approved funding for the tunnel in the city's capital outlay budget for 1934. Two months later, the Board of Estimate approved the Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnel in conjunction with a
Staten Island–Brooklyn tunnel under
the Narrows. The city was set to ask for $50 million (equivalent to $ in ) in federal funding, but this request was dropped from the final vote. The same month, city officials hired temporary workers to survey sites for the proposed tunnel so that they could create a report for the PWA application. Civic groups and Brooklyn politicians petitioned the city to commence construction immediately so traffic congestion could be reduced. However, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt had stipulated that PWA funding only be given to projects that could be finished within a year of the grant being awarded. Since the Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnel project would take longer, it and other New York City highway projects were ineligible for PWA funding. In January 1936, the
New York State Legislature created the New York City Tunnel Authority to oversee the construction of a
tunnel between Midtown Manhattan and Queens. The bill also provided the authority with the power to build the Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnel if funds became available. By this time, the construction cost of the Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnel was now projected to be $58 million (equivalent to $ in ). Detailed plans for the tunnel were released in May 1936. The project now consisted of a $60.3-million (equivalent to $ in ) twin-tube bore from Red Hook, Brooklyn, to the Battery, Manhattan, as well as a $2.3-million (equivalent to $ in ) bridge over the Gowanus Canal. The city approved these plans in January 1936. One civic group wanted to plan for future traffic volumes, so it asked the city to conduct further studies of the Brooklyn–Manhattan tunnel project. The tunnel was officially renamed the "Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel" in July 1936. In November of that year, Brooklyn Borough President
Raymond Ingersoll and
New York City Parks commissioner
Robert Moses revealed a plan to connect the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel to
Long Island's
parkway system via a new
Gowanus Parkway and
Circumferential Parkway. The planned tunnel was also part of the
Regional Plan Association's proposed parkway system around New York City. The next month, the New York City Tunnel Authority advertised for bids to create test bores for the tunnel. Copies of the plans for the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel were submitted to La Guardia's mayoral administration in February 1937. Two tunnels, one in each direction, would connect to the
West Side Highway and the
FDR Drive on the Manhattan side and to Hamilton Avenue on the Brooklyn side. There would be a ventilation tower at the midpoint on Governors Island because the tunnels would stretch between the two portals, The tunnel would also halve travel time between southern Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan since, at the time, there was no direct route for traffic between these two areas. The route between Hamilton Avenue and the West Side Highway was determined to be the cheapest route that could be constructed. The Tunnel Authority let contracts for borings in April 1938. The
US Army, which held a hearing for public opinions on the tunnel proposal, gave its permission to the tunnel plan in September 1938. The Tunnel Authority suggested that federal funding could be used to pay for the tunnel and that private financing could also be provided if it was needed. The next month, La Guardia met with PWA chair
Harold L. Ickes and
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) chair
Jesse H. Jones to convince them to help fund the tunnel because the project could now be completed within a year. The city government then published a new financial plan in September 1938, wherein the cost of the tunnel would increase to $77.3 million (equivalent to $ in ). The city would reduce its request from the PWA by $19.82 million (equivalent to $ in ) and raise that money by selling
bonds instead, and it would also apply for $45 million (equivalent to $ in ) from the RFC. Manhattan Borough President
Stanley M. Isaacs objected to the tunnel plan because he thought the proposal would not be able to adequately handle traffic on the Manhattan side. In response, Parks Commissioner Moses asked Isaacs to think of a better idea to deal with the traffic. Ickes later rejected the city's request for PWA funds, saying that there were "tremendous financial and practical obstacles" for any further PWA involvement. These impediments included a lack of money because, although the PWA had given the city an appropriation for the Belt Parkway, the money had been used up. Due to the PWA's refusal to grant a loan for the Battery Tunnel's construction, the project was temporarily put on hold.
Bridge proposal In January 1939, after the failure to allocate federal funds to the tunnels, Moses (now the chair of the
Triborough Bridge Authority) proposed the Brooklyn–Battery Bridge. He stated that constructing a bridge would be cheaper, faster, and more efficient than building a tunnel. The bridge would consist of a six-lane tandem
suspension bridge span with two back-to-back suspension bridges, and it could be built in 27 months, compared to 46 months for a tunnel. One of the other benefits, in Moses's opinion, was that the $41-million (equivalent to $ in ) bridge would not require any federal money. The Tunnel Authority also opposed the Brooklyn–Battery Bridge because a bridge would lower property values. In response, Moses predicted that the Tunnel Authority's Queens–Midtown Tunnel would not be profitable and that the Tunnel Authority should organize its existing affairs before deciding to build a new tunnel. Moses was able to garner support for the bridge from influential city and state politicians, including four of five borough presidents, Mayor La Guardia, and US Senator
Robert F. Wagner. In early March 1939, the
New York City Planning Commission endorsed plans for the Battery Bridge, and a bill for the bridge was moved to a vote in the state legislature. The bill was proposed for a vote in the City Council, but this was blocked due to concerns that the bridge's connection to the East River Drive would not be able to accommodate future traffic volumes. The
American Institute of Architects asked that the city reconsider the bridge, as it would obstruct the dramatic view of the Manhattan
skyline, reduce
the Battery to minuscule size, and destroy the
Great New York Aquarium at
Castle Clinton. There was significant opposition from the public, and so the City Council Committee on State Legislation did not approve the plan. In response, Moses changed the Brooklyn–Battery Bridge plans to include landscaping work at the Battery. La Guardia believed that if this revised plan were passed, Ickes would finally allocate a PWA grant to the bridge project. On March 28, the City Council voted to approve the bridge project, with 19 members in favor and six opposed. Two days later, both chambers of the New York State Legislature passed bills that permitted the construction of the Brooklyn–Battery Bridge, and Governor
Herbert H. Lehman signed the bills within the week. Moses quickly sought to obtain approval from the
US Department of War, which needed to approve the plan. As part of the approval process, the US Army held a public hearing to solicit opinions on the bridge plan. To solidify their opposition to the bridge plans, 17 civic groups formed a committee, and the
Municipal Art Society criticized the proposed bridge as an act of "vandalism" toward the city's public parks. Opponents claimed that the bridge would block naval traffic, a suggestion that La Guardia and Moses refuted. The Department of War ultimately declined to endorse the Brooklyn–Battery Bridge. In May 1939 Robert Woodring, the
US Secretary of War, blocked the construction of the bridge due to concerns over the span's potential to become a naval obstruction during a war, since the
Brooklyn Navy Yard was located shoreward of the proposed bridge. In response, Moses submitted a revised plan for the bridge and asked the Department of War to reconsider. Moses and Brooklyn politicians declared that they would not accept anything other than an endorsement of the second plan. However, in July, the War Department also rejected the second plan, since the new plan would also pose a wartime hazard. Advocates for the bridge called the rejection a "setback to business". Moses continued to support the bridge, praising it as less intrusive and cheaper than a tunnel, despite great public opposition to a bridge. In October, in a last effort to garner official acceptance for the Battery Bridge plan, Moses and La Guardia appealed directly to President Roosevelt to form an independent committee to study the proposal. Moses again revised the plan, adding a ramp to Governors Island so the Army forces could also use the bridge, in a fashion similar to the
San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge's connection to the Army reservation on
Yerba Buena Island in California. By November, La Guardia was arranging to obtain financing for the tunnel, even if it had to come from private sources. After a meeting with La Guardia, RFC chair Jones announced that there were no obstacles to granting a $70-million (equivalent to $ in ) loan toward the tunnel project. The city was expecting to start construction once the loan was received. The tunnel plans were completed and sent to federal agencies for approval that month. The New York City Tunnel Authority announced in March 1940 that it would start construction within 40 days. Preliminary construction and land acquisition for the Brooklyn approach was already underway. The Army had already approved the tunnel but, due to a minor change in the plan, had to hold another hearing, and the Army was expected to uphold the permit. In May, La Guardia signed a preliminary contract to start construction. Moses stated that he wanted to complete the tunnel, a crucial link in the Circumferential Parkway System, as soon as possible. The RFC granted the city $57 million (equivalent to $ in ) for the tunnel project later that month.
Ole Singstad, the chief engineer of the New York City Tunnel Authority, was commissioned to design the tunnel. In mid-1940, 400 Brooklyn residents living in the tunnel's
right-of-way were evicted. On the Manhattan side, a large part of
Little Syria, a mostly
Christian Syrian/
Lebanese neighborhood centered around
Washington Street, was razed to create the entrance ramps for the tunnel. Many of the shops and residents of Little Syria later moved to
Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The city ultimately spent $4 million (equivalent to $ in ) on land acquisition.
Construction starts The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel's groundbreaking ceremony was supposed to be held on October 8, 1940, with President Roosevelt in attendance. At the time, the president was in the final weeks of his reelection campaign for the
1940 United States presidential election, and he was expected to campaign at several places around New York City. The
groundbreaking was ultimately pushed back to October 28. At the ceremony, Roosevelt extolled the benefits of a tunnel as opposed to a bridge, while Mayor La Guardia invited the president to return for the opening ceremony in four years. Three days later, the city approved a motion to widen Hamilton Avenue from to make way for the Brooklyn tunnel approach, as well as awarded a contract for the tunnel's lining to
Bethlehem Steel. The start of actual tunneling was delayed due to dispute between a
dockworkers' union, which was commissioned to dig the tunnel, and a
sandhogs' union, which claimed that its members were entitled to work on the project because the sandhogs specialized in building tunnels. This disagreement turned into a violent protest and multiday strike in February 1941. The next year, some union sandhog workers were banned from working on the Battery Tunnel project due to a disagreement with their union's parent union. Another issue arose when it was revealed that the
New York Aquarium at
Castle Clinton, at the Battery on the Manhattan side, would need to be demolished to make way for the tunnel. The aquarium considered moving to
Coney Island on the southern shore of Brooklyn. To expedite construction of the tunnel, the city closed the Great New York Aquarium and moved its fish to other aquariums in September 1941. Moses advocated for the demolition of Castle Clinton, but preservationists who opposed Moses's proposed action asked federal judge to grant an
injunction to prevent demolition. Even though Moses initially had the injunction dismissed, the federal government later designated the castle a US historic monument, which prohibited him from demolishing the castle. The tunnel project would also require demolishing of the Battery in order to build a
seawall, and, as a result of the downsizing of the Battery, an architect was hired to study the redesign of the park. This, in turn, led to a public competition for potential park redesigns. In August 1940, the city filed plans for two drawbridges across the Gowanus Canal as part of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel approach project. The US Army officially approved plans for the Gowanus Canal bridge in October, just before the tunnel was set to begin construction. The Gowanus bridge's contract was awarded in December 1940. A contract for the Gowanus Parkway approach to the tunnel and bridge was awarded the next month. In mid-1941, planners realized that Hicks Street, on the Brooklyn side, would also need to be widened so that traffic from the north could enter the tunnel, whose Brooklyn portal faced southeast. By May 1942, the Gowanus Parkway was completed between Hicks Street and the Belt Parkway. The parkway also included a bridge over the Gowanus Canal, a fixed span rising above the waterway before descending to Hicks Street. Construction on an extension of the highway along Hicks Street did not start until 1946. A new plan for the Manhattan approaches was released in mid-1941. This plan, believed to reduce traffic congestion, consisted of extending the West Side Elevated Highway south to the Battery with a ramp from the southbound highway leading directly into the tunnel. The
Battery Park Underpass would be built between the West Side Highway and the FDR Drive. As a result, the approaches to the tunnel would only need to connect to the west side of the Battery, and traffic accessing the
North River piers on the West Side would not be interrupted by tunnel traffic. However, this was not the case for traffic from Brooklyn, which would have to go through a traffic light before accessing the ramp for the elevated highway. The tunnel-boring project consisted of digging two separate bores from each end. Contracts for boring the tunnels from the Manhattan side were opened in May 1941. The Manhattan contract was awarded to Mason Hangar in October of the same year. A contest for designing the Governors Island ventilation building was also held, and the contract was ultimately given to the architectural firm
McKim, Mead & White. The last tunneling project, a contract to dig in either direction from Governors Island until the tubes connected to each other, was advertised in December 1941.
Construction halts and restarts The tunnel was originally expected for completion by 1944. However, the Battery Tunnel project was not deemed a high-importance destination for steel, so the tunnel's priority status for the receipt of steel was revoked in February 1942. Although digging work continued, the tunnel could not be finished until after the war. In October 1942, Moses recommended that tunnel work be halted completely to conserve steel and other metals that were needed for the war. At this time, the federal
War Production Board (WPB) released an order to stop work on the Brooklyn end, although digging from the Manhattan side was allowed to continue because that work consisted solely of digging through solid rock. By the end of the month, the WPB ordered a halt to all construction work on the tunnel's Manhattan end as well. Due to opposition over potentially firing the sandhogs, they were allowed to continue working until a final review of the WPB's action was conducted. At the time, the bores from Manhattan and Brooklyn were in various stages of completion. The federal government gave its permission the next month. In mid-1945, after the war ended, the Triborough Bridge Authority was merged with the Tunnel Authority, allowing the new
Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) to take over the project. Moses, the TBTA head, promptly fired Singstad and replaced him with TBTA Chief Engineer
Ralph Smillie, who designed the remainder of the tunnel. The WPB approved the resumption of tunnel work in September of that year. Because of objections to the proposed Manhattan ventilation building's design, the TBTA changed the plans so that the tower would look like a granite monument rather than a simple ventilation tower. Moses directed the tunnel be finished with a different method for finishing the tunnel walls. This resulted in leaking, and, according to Moses biographer
Robert Caro, the TBTA fixed the leaks by using a design almost identical to Singstad's original. Singstad later claimed that Smillie had caused "excessive" leakage by not using Singstad's experimental caulking design to prevent leaks. Smillie denied that the leakage was excessive and that Singstad's caulking method had been replaced because that method was actually the cause of the leak. In July 1947, the eastern tube for future northbound traffic was the first to be holed-through, with workers from each side shaking hands as a small pipe was passed through from one side to another. The pipe was then removed, and the openings covered up, to prevent drastic changes in pressure at either end of the tube. The tunnels from Manhattan and Brooklyn had connected at a point under Governors Island, with an error of , and work continued until there was enough assurances that the tunnels had equal pressure readings. After the tunnel was holed through, the TBTA awarded contracts for the construction of the Governors Island ventilation building. Construction on this ventilation building started in January 1949. The plans for the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel also included a seven-story parking garage alongside the Manhattan portal, which broke ground in August 1948. The garage was slated to be the first publicly owned parking complex in the city, and so the city government proposed offering lower parking rates compared to privately owned garages. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was slated to be connected with several parkways and highways on either side, which were built in tandem with the tunnel. On the Brooklyn side, the
Brooklyn–Queens Expressway was under construction, providing a connector to the tunnel from the north. Although it was substantially complete by December 1948, the expressway could not open until the tunnel was complete. On the Manhattan side, the southernmost section of the West Side Elevated Highway, which connected to the Battery and the future tunnel, opened in November 1948. An extension of the East River Drive (by now renamed the FDR Drive) to the future Battery Park Underpass and Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was approved in 1949. Eventually, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was also slated to connect to the
Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge to
Staten Island. However, the Battery Park Underpass was not expected to be completed until 1952, and the FDR Drive extension would take even longer to be completed. Additionally, although a direct ramp from the Brooklyn-bound tunnel to the northbound Brooklyn–Queens Expressway was planned, construction was being delayed due to the difficulty of evicting tenants within the path of the ramp. Due to extra costs caused by delays and striking sandhogs, the authority petitioned the RFC for $14 million (equivalent to $ in ) in funds in August 1947, and, in December of the same year, asked for another $2 million (equivalent to $ in ). In February 1948, the RFC agreed to extend another $28 million (equivalent to $ in ) toward the completion of the tunnel. By mid-1948, the tunnel was 70 percent complete, despite material shortages and cost overruns, and was expected to open to traffic in early 1950. Work on the tunnel progressed, and the tunnel was 94 percent complete by late 1949. A reporter for the
Brooklyn Eagle made an unsanctioned drive between the two ends of the tunnel, noting that tiles, lighting, and a road surface had yet to be added, although the bores themselves were complete. The tubes included four
fluorescent-lighting installations with a total of 5,776 bulbs. At the time, it comprised the world's largest continuous fluorescent installation in the world and was the first crossing in the city to have fluorescent lights. The strips of clay tiles on the tubes' ceilings were advertised as the US's longest continuous uses of clay tiles.
Opening The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel opened to traffic on May 25, 1950, with a ceremony officiated by Mayor
William O'Dwyer. Part of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, along Hicks Street from the Battery Tunnel north to Atlantic Avenue, opened the same day. At the time, the
Brooklyn Eagle described the Battery Tunnel as "the nation's largest, most modern underwater vehicular tunnel", which took three minutes to traverse from end to end. The
Eagle also estimated that the tunnel cost (equivalent to in ) that was built. With a cost of $80 million (equivalent to $ in ), the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was also dubbed the most expensive tunnel in the United States. It was expensive enough that the TBTA had been forced to look around the world for a company that could cover the tunnel's $33.5-million (equivalent to $ in ) insurance policy. However, the cost was expected to be counterbalanced, in part, through the $0.35 tolls and the time savings afforded. Truckers at
Bush Terminal, located south of the tunnel's portal, predicted that they would save 35 minutes a day and $1 million (equivalent to $ in ) a year by driving through the tunnel. Some road infrastructure projects at both ends of the tunnel were completed shortly after the tunnel opened. The first associated project to be completed was the Battery Park Underpass on the Manhattan side, which opened in April 1950. Two months later, officials opened a ramp on the Brooklyn side, which led from the southbound tunnel lanes to the northbound Brooklyn–Queens Expressway. The Battery Park Underpass was connected to the FDR Drive elevated viaduct, and thus to the FDR Drive, in May 1954. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel project also entailed the restoration of Battery Park, which reopened in 1952 after a 12-year shutdown.
Later years The tubes were designed for two lanes in each direction. This was changed in 1956, when the Brooklyn-bound western tube was changed to handle
bidirectional traffic during morning rush hours, owing to heavy rush-hour traffic congestion. A northbound
high-occupancy vehicle lane (HOV lane) was later added during the morning rush hours. It led from Staten Island to Manhattan via the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge, the Gowanus Expressway, and the Battery Tunnel. A large volume of tunnel drivers also used the garage on the Manhattan side, so in 1965, plans were made to expand the garage. The expanded garage, which was completed in 1968, had 2,126 spots. In 1957, workers performing maintenance on the tunnel observed that the tiled ceiling in the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was leaking. About of the of ceiling was found to have corroded. The TBTA restored the tubes' ceilings starting in 1959 at a cost of $250,000 (equivalent to $ in ). In 1971, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was designated
Interstate 478 in preparation for the "
Westway" project, which would reconstruct the West Side Highway to
Interstate Highway standards. The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was closed completely after the
September 11 attacks due to the proximity of the Manhattan portal to the
World Trade Center site. Although many major crossings within the city were also closed following the attacks, they reopened relatively quickly, albeit with HOV restrictions during rush hours. The western tube of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was the first part of the tunnel to reopen, in October 2001, and carried only southbound traffic. However, the West Side Highway was closed to traffic south of
Canal Street, some 30 blocks north of the tunnel portal, and part of the highway had been destroyed during the attacks. Consequently, officials feared that traffic in the tunnel would be backed up at least 40 blocks if the highway was reopened. As a result, work started on a temporary roadway leading from the highway to the tunnel. The northbound tube, which reopened in March 2002, was the last crossing into Manhattan to reopen. Less than a week after the tunnel was officially renamed, it was closed in preparation for
Hurricane Sandy, marking the first-ever weather-related-closure for the tunnel. It was subsequently flooded after a severe
storm surge. The Hugh L. Carey Tunnel reopened on November 13 following a cleanup process that included the removal of an estimated of water. The
flooding resulting from Hurricane Sandy demonstrated how floodprone the tunnel was, since the sea level around the tunnel had risen since its opening in 1951, and the portals are located on land very close to sea level. In October 2017, a pair of floodgates were installed on the Manhattan-side openings of the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel. The Manhattan floodgates were supposed to be accompanied by a pair on the Brooklyn side, as well as a
seawall. This combined project was 63 percent complete . In 2017–2018, the tiled walls in the Queens–Midtown and Brooklyn–Battery tunnels were replaced due to damage suffered during Hurricane Sandy. The retiled white walls have gold-and-blue stripes, representing the official state colors of New York. Controversy arose over the cost of retiling the tunnels, which cost a combined $30 million (equivalent to $ in ), because of the
ongoing transit crisis at the time. On September 28, 2023, an 18-wheel tractor entered the Brooklyn-bound tunnel, traveling the wrong way to Manhattan, and got stuck inside the tunnel, backing up traffic for several hours. ==Tolls==