L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers,  down the line, who knows, there could be a push to rename the Verranzano - Narrows Bridge, the Indigenous Peoples Bridge, in honor of the Mohawk Indian, high steel wal- ing iron workers, among the ten thousand people who worked on the NY Bridge building project. Meanwhile Giovanni da Ver- razzano's namesake's double decker suspension bridge, which lost a "z" in the translation, turns 54 this month. Then New York Mayor, Robert F. Wagner cut the rib- bon at the opening ceremony. The upper level of the Ver- razano-Narrows Bridge, which opened to the public on Novem- ber 21, 1964, was named after Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485- 1528), the Florentine explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France. Giovanni da Verrazzano was born in Val di Greve (south of Firenze), in the Republic of Florence and was the son of Piero Andrea di Bernardo da Verraz- zano and Fiammetta Cappelli. Verrazzano always considered himself a Florentine no matter where he travelled. Verrazzano is renowned as the first European since the Norse expeditions to North America, around AD 1000, to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick, including New York Bay and Narragansett Bay, in 1524. *** Verrazzano left Florence and settled in the port city of Dieppe, France in 1506, where he began his career as a navigator and left detailed accounts of his voyages to North America. On behalf of merchants and financiers seeking new trade routes, King Francis I of France, in 1523, asked Verraz- zano to make plans to explore an area between Florida and Ter- ranova, the "New Found Land," with the goal of finding a sea route to the Pacific Ocean. With- in months, four ships set sail due west for the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, but a violent storm and rough seas caused the loss of two ships. The remaining two damaged ships, La Dauphine and La Normande, were forced to return to Brittany. Repairs completed, in the final weeks of 1523, they set sail again. This time the ships headed south toward calmer waters, which were under dangerous Spanish and Portuguese con- trol. After a stop in Madeira, com- plications forced La Normande back to port, but Verrazzano's ship, La Dauphine, piloted by Antoine de Conflans, departed and headed once more for the North American continent. It neared the area of Cape Fear on March 1 and, after a short stay, reached the Pamlico Sound lagoon of modern North Caroli- na. Exploring the coast further northwards, Verrazzano and his crew came into contact with Native Americans living on the coast. In New York Bay, he observed what he deemed to be a large lake, which was in fact the entrance to the Hudson River. He then sailed along Long Island and entered Narragansett Bay, where he received a delega- tion of Wampanoag. He stayed there for two weeks, and then moved northwards, following the coast up to modern Maine, Southeastern Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, after which he returned to France in July 1524. Verrazzano named the region he explored Francesca in honor of the French King, but his brother's map labels it Nova Gallia, "New France." *** With financial support from Jean Ango and Philippe de Chabot, Verrazzano arranged a second voyage which departed from Dieppe with four ships, early in 1527. One ship was sepa- rated from the others in a gale near the Cape Verde Islands, but Verrazzano reached the coast of Brazil with three ships and har- vested a cargo of Brazil wood before returning to the French port city. In 1528, during his third voy- age to North America, after exploring Florida, the Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles, Verraz- zano anchored out to sea and rowed ashore to the island of Guadaloupe. He was killed by the native inhabitants. The fleet of two or three ships was anchored out of gunshot range and no one could respond in time. *** Verrazzano's reputation, despite his discoveries, did not proliferate as much as the other explorers of that era. He had the bad luck of making major discov- eries within the same five-year period, 1519-1524, of both the dramatic conquest of Mexico and Ferdinand Magellan's circumnav- igation of the world which, though Magellan did not com- plete it, brought him undying fame... *** The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is named for both the Flo- rentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who, while in the service of Francis I of France, became in 1524 the first Euro- pean to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River, and for the body of water it spans: the Nar- rows. It has a central span of 4,260 feet (1,298 meters) and was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its completion in 1964, surpassing the Golden Gate Bridge by 60 feet, until it was in turn surpassed by 366 feet by the Hamber Bridge in the United Kingdom in 1981. *** Currently, it has the eleventh longest main span in the world, while retaining its place as the longest bridge span in the Ameri- cas. Its massive towers can be seen throughout a good part of the New York metropolitan area, including spots in all five bor- oughs of New York City and in New Jersey. The bridge establishes a criti- cal link in the local and regional highway system. It marks the gateway to New York Harbor; all cruise ship and most container ships arriving at the Port of New York and New Jersey must pass underneath the bridge and there- fore must be built to accommo- date the clearance under it. Since 1976, the bridge has been the starting point of the New York City Marathon. *** The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge was the crowning achieve- ment of the structural engineer Othmar Amman and of New York's master planner Robert Moses. It was built for $320 mil- lion, more or less on budget, a standard of frugality that present- day New York can only dream of. Ten thousand men worked to build the bridge.

• Cover