Who is the holland tunnel named after
Holland Tunnel Construction
nothing expressed the energy and
optimism of New York in the 1920s then
the automobile it was a city on the move
11 rail tunnels already crisscross the
city and construction on the first road
tunnel connecting Manhattan and New
Jersey under the Hudson River was set to
begin while several plans were
considered 36 year old Harvard graduate
Clifford Holland's twin tube design each
carrying two lanes of one-way traffic
was chosen and he appointed chief
engineer in 1920 booth and Flynn which
had built six of the rail tunnels under
the East River one the construction
contract but this almost 30 foot
diameter tunnel was much larger than the
rail tunnels and the drives would be
some 8,500 feet long construction began
with the unsure shafts thinking of
pneumatic caissons for shields to from
each side would meet under the river
the tunnels pioneering ventilation
system made the crossing possible
designed by engineer or like Singh's dad
42 fans would blow clean air into the
tunnel through ducts at Road level while
another 42 fans would draw a dirty air
out through the ceiling on a good day
three shifts of 45 to 55 men often
working on the high pressure of up to 48
pounds per square inch
advanced 40 feet in all there were 750
6,000 decompressions of men with only
528 recorded cases of the bends as the
400-ton shields pushed forward the
workers shoveled muck blasted through
Rock and installed the cast-iron
segments lining 14 segments plus a key
play formed one ring each bolt tightened
by hand on April 3rd 1924 35 men fled
for their lives when a blowout just
behind the shield flooded 300 feet of
the southern tunnel on the Manhattan
side
no lives were lost that day however 14
men died during construction
none reportedly from decompression
sickness as construction progressed
Holland was ever-present and widely
respected once and hot boss said the
engineer could come into the tunnel
blindfolded and tell them if they were
going wrong but Holland would never see
the tunnel finished he suffered a
nervous breakdown and died of a heart
attack on October 28 1924 just one day
before the first set of shields hold
through under the river sings dad would
eventually become lead engineer and
complete the tunnel in all workers
excavated a half million cubic yards of
MA
installed 70,000 tunnel segments poured
more than a hundred and twenty nine
thousand cubic yards of concrete and
installed six million ceramic tiles
named after its visionary designer the
Holland Tunnel took seven years and 40
8.4 million dollars to build it opened
to traffic one minute past midnight
November 13th 1927 on that first day
more than 50,000 vehicles drove through
the tunnel for a toll of just 50 cents
