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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 10, 2016)
4C THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 2016 PARTING SHOT FROM DANNY MILLER A weekly snapshot from The Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer photographers The sun sets on the Columbia River as seen from the Astoria Riverwalk in June. ODDITY Two Z’s New push aims to ix misspelling of NYC’s Verrazano Bridge By VERENA DOBNIK Associated Press N EW YORK — It’s an error that has loomed over New York Harbor for more than 50 years: The name of the majes- tic Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is spelled wrong. Despite a new petition drive to make it right — the bridge is named for 16th-century Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano (two Z’s) — the state authority that controls the span has stubbornly held to the one Z position it’s taken for years: We know it’s wrong, but we’re not changing it. Metropolitan Transportation Authority oficials say it would simply be too expensive to change all the signs, brochures, maps and websites. Changing the name of New York’s Triborough Bridge to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in 2008, for example, reportedly cost the state $4 million. “This is a travesty,” said Robert Nash, a 21-year-old Brooklyn college student who started an online petition to add the other Z to North America’s longest suspension bridge. “To honor a man and name a bridge after him and not spell his name right?” Italian-Americans deserve better Nash, whose mother is Italian and father half-Italian, said Italian-Americans every- where deserve better. “We were always proud of being of Italian descent, and this rich cul- ture shaped who I am,” he says. After all, there was no question how Ver- razzano, the irst European to explore New York Harbor in 1524, spelled his name. So why, Nash asks, should Italian-Americans have to endure the error every time they cross the 4,260-foot span between Brooklyn and Staten Island? Why should they seethe every year when the bridge gets worldwide atten- tion as the starting point for the New York Marathon? And as critics have noted over the years, would it be acceptable if the George Washing- ton Bridge or John F. Kennedy International Airport were spelled wrong? So why push for the name change now? AP Photo/Craig Ruttle The Australian naval frigate HMAS Sydney passes under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge as it enters New York Harbor in 2009. For over 50 years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has spelled the name of the bridge with a single Z, but the Italian Italian ex- plorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, whom the bridge is named after, spelled his name with two Z’s. Nash, whose petition was irst reported by the Brooklyn Paper and its Brooklyn Daily web- site, says it came to him by chance as he was taking pictures of the bridge with his girl- friend. He noticed a sign with the name and it just looked wrong. His suspicions were con- irmed when he checked Italian websites for the explorer’s name, “and I said, `Wow!”’ Source of mistake unclear Exactly how the error was made in the irst place is unclear. At the time the bridge opened in 1964, the nation was still grieving President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and famed New York urban planner Robert Moses had report- edly favored naming the bridge for him. It was John LaCorte, founder of the New York- based Italian Historical Society of America, who led the ight to have the bridge named for Verrazzano. Some have speculated Gov. Nel- son Rockefeller signed off on the name with one Z. But according to Gay Talese, who chron- icled the span’s construction for The New York Times and in his book “The Bridge,” the origin of the error was the original 1959 building contract, which spelled Verrazzano’s name with one Z. “We’re talking about a typo and everybody let it go,” Talese told The Associated Press. “Nobody noticed because nobody really knew who Verrazzano was then.” Others, however, have managed to get the name right. A statue of Verrazzano in lower Manhat- tan includes the two Z’s, as does a bridge over Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. One of the city’s prominent Italian-Amer- icans, Mayor Bill de Blasio, chuckled when he was informed of the petition drive during a news conference Wednesday. “I will get a task force going on that right away and get back to you,” the mayor joked. “As a proud Italian, I need to go back and do my research.” AP Photo/Seth Wenig A road sign indicating an entrance to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is seen in New York on Wednesday. It’s an error that has loomed over New York Harbor for more than 50 years: The name of the majestic Verraza- no-Narrows Bridge is spelled wrong. Now available in the The Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer For more information call 503-325-3211 crbizjou rn a l.com
