Which bridge in New York City is the longest suspension bridge in the Americas?

The longest suspension bridge in the Americas is New York City’s Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

The bridge connects Brooklyn and Staten Island across the Narrows, the tidal strait that forms the entrance to New York Harbor. Designed principally by engineer Othmar Ammann, it opened on November 21, 1964, with its lower deck added in 1969. Its main span measures 4,260 feet between the two suspension towers.

When it opened, the bridge had the world’s longest suspension-bridge main span, surpassing San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge by 60 feet. The Humber Bridge in England overtook it in 1981, but the Verrazzano-Narrows remains the longest suspension-bridge main span in the Americas. Its towers rise 693 feet, and engineers had to account for the curvature of Earth when positioning them.

The name is sometimes written “Verrazano-Narrows,” omitting the second z. That spelling appeared in the original official name because of a construction-contract error; New York corrected the spelling to honor Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 2018. The bridge carries traffic on two levels.