Othmar Herman AmmannBorn 26 Mar 1879; died 22 Sep 1965 at age 86.Swiss-American engineer and designer of numerous long suspension bridges as the New York Port Authority's Chief Engineer (1929), including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge over New York harbour, at its completion (1965) the longest single span in the world. The first of six bridges he would design for the city was the George Washington Bridge, completed (1931) at a cost of $59 million, and opened to traffic on 25 Oct. It crosses the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York, and represents a marvel of construction for its time. |