when it opened for traffic on november the 13th 1927 new york's holland tunnel was not only the
world's very first mechanically ventilated underwater vehicle tunnel but it was also the
largest of its type this masterpiece of a roadway was named after clifford m holland the visionary
who designed it with a north tube of 8558 feet and a south tube of 8371 feet long it reaches a depth
of 93.4 feet below the water level with a road surface that's 20 feet wide the holland tunnel
is notable in length but it was also considered an incredible achievement of engineering today we
explore the story of the holland tunnel i'm your host ryan socash and you're watching it's history
today we will discuss one of new york's most impressive examples of engineering an endeavor
that indeed required the type of knowledge that at one time was not widely available however things
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and now back to the holland tunnel from steam ferries to railroads and subways there is little
question about the impact that transportation has had on the life of new yorkers with millions of
people riding transit lines across the city every day it is truly a critical part of life however
there was a time when there were only a few options connecting manhattan to new jersey
back in the day sides of the river boomed with waterfront factories and markets as primary
transportation option was cargo carrying barges and ferries the port system of the overcrowded
hudson river profited from the congestion but travelers suffered finding themselves stuck with
long commuting times and incredibly heavy traffic the introduction of automobiles also contributed
to traffic pileups with the sheer amount of people in the city traveling streets often became clogged
so a pressure valve was needed the solution was something that seemed impossible at the time
a vehicle tunnel that ran under the hudson river diverting a large amount of both traffic that
blocked streets and the overwhelming amount of water-bound vehicles that carried thousands of
busy new yorkers across the hudson before we get into the construction of the holland tunnel itself
it is essential to note that it wasn't the first underwater tube in new york one of the tunnels
that preceded it was the journalman street tube which connected bowling green and lower manhattan
to the brooklyn borough hall it first opened as a subway route that ran five-minute trips
at a cost of five cents prior to the german street tubes opening a back-and-forth shuttle
train carried the bulk of passengers who commuted across the brooklyn bridge this shuttle was so
incredibly crowded during rush hour that it was often called the bridge crush on one occasion the
new york times sent two reporters on a race from its office in times square to brooklyn and back
one on the subway and the other on the shuttle according to the gothamist one of the new york
time writers recalled the following the new tunnel means that dinner can be served on time
which is a condition not existing in brooklyn now if the wage earner is compelled to use the bridges
during rush hours however while the two proved the effectiveness of underwater travel clifford
millborn holland's masterpiece of engineering would by far be one of the most ambitious projects
in all of the city's history so let's take a look at its ingenious design
the plans for a crossing over the hudson river first started in 1906 after state commissions in
new york and new jersey collaborated to construct one or more bridges connecting new york city to
new jersey at that time the majority of the new jersey interstate bridge and tunnel commission and
the new york state bridge and tunnel commission's focus was planning out the bridge to be however
one of the tunnel's first supporters jv pond davies the president of the asce new york section
in 1921 and 1922 estimated the cost of both projects in the same location he found in 1913
that a bridge would cost a staggering 50 million well a tunnel would only cost 10
million due to this estimate the state commissions would delay planning until
it was finally decided against a bridge as it was not possible to support economically
not only would it need incredible deep foundations dug into the ground to reach bedrock but it would
also require an immense amount of land to be purchased to create approaches for such a long
bridge however while the decision to construct a tunnel underneath the hudson would help relieve
traffic and solve financial concerns there was one outstanding problem other forms of mass transit
such as subway could run through underground tunnels for long periods of time thanks to their
electrified tracks on the other hand automobiles produced deadly amounts of carbon monoxide
that could quickly become lethal at a depth of almost 100 feet under the water the carbon
monoxide would become trapped building up to be deadly for motorists who drove through it risking
asphyxiation solving this problem during the planning was no easy feat requiring the genius of
multiple different engineers all brought together under chief engineer clifford milburn holland
holland was just 36 years old when he was appointed as the project's chief engineer helen's
background in underwater tunnel construction spoke for itself by the time he was put to work in 1919
he had designed four subway tunnels across the east river these tunnels were the btm montague
14th street 60th street tunnels and the irt clark street tunnel holland was also a harvard graduate
with a bachelor of the arts and a bachelor of science both in civil engineering alongside ol
singstan a norwegian american civic engineer as the project's design engineer and milton freeman
the resident engineer and construction supervisor the task set before holland was incredibly
daunting during the early stages of the tunnel's planning 11 different concepts were proposed
the first of these plans was a bi-level tunnel 31 feet in diameter by the jacob and davies firm
even the chief engineer of the panama canal george w goethals drew up a design proposal his
design suggested a single concrete lined tube with two levels that had three traffic lanes running
through it on the other hand holland's plans indicated that rather than using a single tube
two twin tubes could be implemented instead these tubes would be lined with cast iron and have only
a single deck with two lanes of traffic holland's plan would win out in the end and as things
were being finalized and discussed many other engineers were hard at work trying to come up
with an effective ventilation system the design of the ventilation system required an incredible
amount of work and research on behalf of multiple different institutions these institutions included
the bureau of mines in pittsburgh which determined the composition of motor gas
and the university of illinois to determine the amount of power needed to operate the ventilation
system and even yale university which studied the effects of carbon monoxide on humans around that
same time holland would travel overseas to europe to research ventilation systems of english german
and scottish tunnels the asce metropolitan section reports that at the time of these studies it was
concluded that to operate safely the tunnel would need to have a pressurized airflow rate of 27
cubic meters per second throughout the tunnel to put this into perspective the acceptable standard
of carbon monoxide content was four parts per ten thousand parts of air on opening day the average
count in the tunnel was just .69 parts per 10 000 parts of air with its highest being just 1.60
this led many new yorkers to proclaim that the air quality in the tunnel was better than the air
quality in the city itself this new ventilation system would challenge the conventions of previous
ventilation systems in railroad tunnels these old ventilation systems would blow air from one portal
to another however this was not feasible for a vehicle tunnel as it needed gale force winds
exceeding 70 miles per hour always blowing through the tunnel to clear the exhaust from vehicles
which could be a massive fire hazard especially in such an enclosed environment to work the holland
tunnel needed a completely new system a system in which clean air would be readily supplied through
an air duct below the roadway there were openings to this air duct and intervals and an exhaust duct
ran above the airway to remove the fumes from the tunnel this also reduced the fire risk as
the spread of flames would be confined thanks to the air being drawn straight up two ventilation
buildings were placed on either side of the hudson housing 84 fans in total one half of the fans
are used to pump clean air into the tunnel and the other half are used as exhaust fans
only 56 of the fans are operational at a time with the remaining fans being reserved for emergencies
each fan is 80 feet in diameter however before they were ready to start building they had to
be sure that this would work to evaluate how effective the new ventilation system would be the
bureau of mines constructed a 400 foot long scale model once it was complete the final touches were
put on the design and the time had finally come to start the incredible project when construction of
the tunnel officially began on march the 31st 1922 with a groundbreaking ceremony the holland tunnel
was known as the hudson river vehicular tunnel construction was a massive project with the use of
caissons and pneumatic shields the latter of which were pneumatically pushed through the river bottom
to dig through mud and serve as the shell for the actual tunnel compressed air inside the caissons
was pumped to pressurize the interior to keep dirt and water outside making it possible for workers
called sand hogs to excavate parts of the tunnel and place cast iron rings as wall support workers
spent large amounts of time underwater in caissons with pressure up to 47.5 pounds per square inch
well there were 528 cases of a sickness called the benz also referred to in our video on the brooklyn
bridge caused by the release of nitrogen bubbles in the blood via rapid decompression miraculously
no men died due to the illness itself however the tunnel's construction was not without tragedy
13 workers had died between 1921 and 1924 as time went on the job became safer with
improved techniques but two more disasters would occur before the holland tunnel finally opened
the first of these deaths was none other than the chief engineer himself clifford holland
five years into work on the tunnel the immense amounts of stress from his job
led to a nervous breakdown it is widely speculated that the long hours spent in the pressurized air
of the tubes may have affected his mental health holland remained in a michigan sanitarium for the
rest of his life but he died of heart disease on october the 27th 1924 he was just 41 years old and
his death came two days before the new york and new jersey ends of the tube were meant to meet
out of respect for him the tunnel was renamed in his honor and even today it remains one of
few major works of engineering that was named after its engineer in the wake of
holland's death milton freeman was assigned to be the chief engineer of the tunnel but again
tragedy would strike as mere months later freeman would die from acute pneumonia on march the 24th
1925. his successor was oli singstan who would oversee the construction until its completion
though singstan's success didn't just stop with the holland tunnel he went on to design
all of new york city's underwater vehicle tunnels the lincoln tunnel the queen's midtown tunnel and
the brooklyn battery tunnel singstan also worked on the baltimore harbor tunnel and served as
the president of the ace met section in 1934 and 1935. finally after years of grueling construction
the holland tunnel formally opened on november the 12th 1927 president calvin coolidge used a
golden telegraph key from his yacht in the potomac river to part the giant american flags over the
entrance to the tunnel opening the way for 20 000 people to walk through the tunnel and admire it
in all of its glory the tunnel remained open to the public to tour on foot for two hours and at
midnight it was open to vehicles with 51 694 cars passing through it on opening day the first car
to enter the holland tunnel from manhattan carried the chairman of new york state's bridge and tunnel
commission along with the widows of clifford holland and milton freeman the new york entrance
plaza remains a monument to the memory of freeman it was named freeman square in his honor it cost
48.5 million to build in total with expenses that new york and new jersey shared the holland tunnel
was a massive success helping lighten the load for both water traffic and city traffic especially
when it came to the overtaxed ferry system the asce metropolitan section took 18 minutes to
travel with motorists waiting for hours at a time it also broke through the barrier between
new york and new jersey trade paving the way for inefficiency once thought to be impossible in 1930
the port authority of new york and new jersey took control of the tunnel but not the property title
and although this tunnel still thrives today it was not without incident throughout its history on
may the 13th 1949 a chemical truck loaded with 80 drums of carbon disulfide that were both poisonous
and extremely flammable exploded inside the tunnel the power of the fans made things worse by fanning
the flames in the end it cost six hundred thousand dollars in damage destroyed 23 trucks and injured
over 60 people though thankfully nobody was killed this situation was a catalyst for a
worldwide crackdown on chemical and explosive transportation standards to avoid similar
incidents however this was not the last time the holland tunnel would be threatened by fire in 2002
a fire erupted in an abandoned warehouse near the western entrance the manhattan-bound lanes were
closed off for several hours to deal with the fire causing massive backups and delays for motorists
today over 1 billion vehicles have traveled the length of the holland tunnel between 1927 and 1970
the toll for drivers to pass was 50 cents each way however in recent years this toll has climbed
as over 100 000 vehicles pass through daily in 1984 the holland tunnel was officially recognized
for its incredible contributions to engineering and underwater tunnel building and designated
as a national civil and mechanical engineering landmark by the american society of civil and
mechanical engineers in 1993 the holland tunnel was designated as a national historic landmark
between 1927 and 2005 500 536 million dollars were invested in the maintenance of the holland tunnel
then between 2003 and 2006 its fire protection system was modernized with nine total lanes 3.1
million ceiling tiles and 2.9 million wall tiles the holland tunnel is without a doubt prestigious
both inside and out and while it has since been replaced as the longest underwater tunnel
it remains a critical part of new york city's transportation to this very day but when i'm
in the tri-state area i like to use the lincoln tunnel which might make a very fascinating part
too to this video so let me know if you'd like to see that by subscribing right now
don't forget to check out our new york city history playlist this is ryan socash signing off