40 Fun Facts About Queensboro Bridge

Which folk duo's 1966 song subtitled Feelin' Groovy is named after the Queensboro Bridge's nickname?

Simon & Garfunkel put it on the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. The idea reportedly came to Paul Simon during a daybreak walk across the bridge.

In which 2002 superhero film's climax is the hero forced to choose whom to save at the Queensboro Bridge?

Spider-Man manages to save both Mary Jane and a group of children after the Green Goblin drops them from the bridge. The real bridge was one of the film's New York locations.

Which New York City mayor of the 1980s had his name officially added to the Queensboro Bridge?

Ed Koch was mayor while the bridge went through its extensive 1980s renovation. The city council made the renaming official in March 2011, two years before he died.

The Queensboro Bridge's roadway was first paved with blocks of which material, a hazard in the rain?

Wood blocks paved the central roadway when the bridge opened. By the mid-1930s the slick surface had made the crossing one of the city's most dangerous roads, and it was replaced.

Into the 1950s, what took people from the Queensboro Bridge's deck down to Roosevelt Island below?

Elevators in a building beside the bridge were, along with one ferry, the only way on or off the island. A new bridge from Queens ended the need for them.

Which 1925 Jazz Age novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald refers to the Queensboro Bridge?

The Great Gatsby is not the only novel to bring in the bridge. Truman Capote's Summer Crossing, written in his youth, mentions it too.

Until 1957, the Queensboro Bridge carried New York State's last route of which kind of transport?

Trolley cars on the Queensboro Bridge Local made their final run on April 7, 1957. Most other lines across the bridge had given way to buses back in the 1930s.

Which sitcom, launched in 1978 with Danny DeVito, opens with a drive across the Queensboro Bridge?

Taxi opens with a Checker cab heading east over the bridge, driven by cast member Tony Danza. The clip runs only about fifteen seconds, so parts of it repeat.

Why did several Irish-American groups object when the name Queensboro Bridge was proposed in 1908?

It sounded too British for their liking, but the name stuck anyway. Businessmen had pushed for the change because the bridge's first name was tied to a place of hospitals and asylums.

Which commuter transport, the first of its type in the U.S., runs alongside the Queensboro Bridge?

An aerial tramway has carried commuters to Roosevelt Island since 1976. It was meant as a temporary link until the subway arrived, yet it stayed in service afterward.

Unlike the older suspension spans on the East River, the Queensboro Bridge is which type of bridge?

Cantilever arms reach out from steel towers and meet above each river channel, with no cables holding up the deck. Every earlier East River crossing had been a suspension design.

The Queensboro Bridge's popular nickname comes from which Manhattan thoroughfare at its western end?

59th Street meets the bridge's Manhattan ramps, so Manhattanites call the crossing by that name. Some Queens residents objected that the nickname left their borough out.

Runners in which annual November race cross the Queensboro Bridge from Queens toward First Avenue?

New York City Marathon runners reach the bridge about 15 miles into the race. It joined the course in 1976, when the event left Central Park to take in every borough.

What was laid over the Queensboro Bridge's deck for runners in a famous 1976 road race?

Carpeting covered the deck for the 1976 race and again the following year. It was dropped once the bridge had been repaved.

Which grocery chain opened a store in 2021 under the Queensboro Bridge's vaulted Manhattan approach?

Trader Joe's moved into a soaring tiled space that began life as a food market when the bridge opened. In between, the space served as a sign shop and a garage.

Which neighborhood, home to Queensboro Plaza station, lies at the Queensboro Bridge's eastern end?

Long Island City boomed after the bridge opened, as factories and loft buildings rose around Queens Plaza. Car makers were among the firms that set up plants there.

The Queensboro Bridge was first officially named after which East River site, known for its asylums?

Blackwell's Island is the old name of Roosevelt Island, which the bridge passes over. Businessmen pushed for a new name in 1908 because the old one was tied to the island's hospitals.

Which underwater crossing, opened in 1940, was expected to ease congestion on the Queensboro Bridge?

Queens–Midtown Tunnel traffic was meant to ease the jams on a bridge then carrying about 110,000 vehicles a day. Planners had also weighed building another bridge alongside.

Which director used the Queensboro Bridge as a location for his 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises?

Christopher Nolan pieced his Gotham together from several real cities. Besides New York, the production filmed in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Newark.

Which director's 1979 film has a famous dawn shot of a couple on a bench by the Queensboro Bridge?

Woody Allen shot the scene for Manhattan at 5 a.m. The crew had to bring their own bench, because the spot had none.

Which future Brooklyn Bridge designer proposed a span at the Queensboro Bridge site back in 1847?

John A. Roebling pitched suspension bridges for the site in 1847 and again in 1856, and neither was built. His work on the Brooklyn Bridge began about a decade after the later attempt.

Which bridge commissioner, later designer of the Hell Gate Bridge, designed the Queensboro Bridge?

Gustav Lindenthal tried to slim the bridge from 120 to 80 feet wide to save money. Queens residents protested, and a panel of experts settled on 91 feet.

A 1907 bridge collapse near which Canadian provincial capital led to Queensboro Bridge safety probes?

Quebec City's unfinished bridge fell into the St. Lawrence, and New York ordered two inquiries into its own look-alike. Engineers judged it sound, but its upper deck was cut from four rail tracks to two.

In 1909, only a railway bridge over which Scottish estuary had a longer span of the Queensboro Bridge's type?

Firth of Forth trains still cross that record-setter, opened in 1890 and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Queensboro span from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island ranked just behind it.

Which annual cycling event sends tens of thousands of riders over the Queensboro Bridge into Queens?

Five Boro Bike Tour riders cover 40 miles through every borough on roads closed to cars. The first ride was organized to teach bicycle safety to high school students.

An ornate kiosk from the Queensboro Bridge's Manhattan end now has which use on Roosevelt Island?

A visitor center now occupies the terracotta kiosk, which once sheltered stairs to an underground terminal. It spent years at the Brooklyn Children's Museum before the move.

In 1908, disgruntled workers tried to destroy a span of the unfinished Queensboro Bridge using what?

Dynamite featured in one of several labor disputes during construction. Earlier strikes by ironworkers and housesmiths had already set the steelwork back by months.

The Queensboro Bridge's stone piers are faced with granite from which New England state?

Maine granite faces a core of concrete and limestone in each pier. The tallest piers stand on Roosevelt Island, where solid bedrock lies just below the surface.

Elevated trains from which Manhattan line crossed the Queensboro Bridge's upper level until 1942?

Second Avenue trains took a spur over the bridge to Queensboro Plaza from 1917. The line shut in June 1942, and its tracks were pulled down by the end of that year.

Which missing Queensboro Bridge ornament was found in a warehouse in 2012 and rededicated on Roosevelt Island?

A bronze lamppost, one of a pair at the Manhattan entrance, was taken down in 1974. Its twin was put back two years later, but parts of this one sat forgotten for decades.

The Queensboro Bridge's eyebars were made of steel alloyed with which metal for extra strength?

Nickel steel was meant to be 40 to 50 percent stronger than ordinary structural steel of the same weight. The massive eyebar links form the top chords of the cantilevers.

The Queensboro Bridge's completion inspired which wide road, later notorious for its many crashes?

Queens Boulevard was laid out to carry traffic from the new bridge toward Jamaica, though it was not finished until 1936. Its crash record earned it a grim nickname, the Boulevard of Death.

Which U.S. Capitol architect proposed a bridge from Manhattan to Queens a century before the Queensboro Bridge?

Benjamin Henry Latrobe floated the idea in 1804, more than a hundred years before the bridge opened. A string of later schemes failed before the city took the project on itself.

Laborers from which New Deal agency repaved the Queensboro Bridge and finished its tower tops?

Works Progress Administration crews set the 225 granite blocks that crown the towers in 1937. The blocks were in the original design but had been left off for nearly three decades.

Politicians from which Democratic machine at first blocked the Queensboro Bridge's approval in 1900?

Tammany Hall opposition stalled the vote in the city's Municipal Assembly. The bridge won approval that November, with its Manhattan end moved south to around 60th Street.

Which federal body had to certify the Queensboro Bridge's plans before any work could begin?

Department of War approval came in February 1901, and ground was broken that September. Congress had signed off on an earlier bridge scheme nearby in 1887, but that one was never finished.

Why did one city commissioner object in the early 1900s to linking the Queensboro Bridge with the island below?

Prisoners might escape, warned the city's corrections commissioner, whose inmates were held on the island. The link was put off and did not open until the late 1910s.

In the early 1910s, almost 30 percent of vehicles crossing the Queensboro Bridge were still what?

Horse-drawn wagons and carriages faded fast: within a decade their share had fallen below 2 percent. Motor traffic on the bridge more than doubled between 1924 and 1932.

A 1970s plan to toll the Queensboro Bridge was meant to help New York obey which federal law?

Clean Air Act targets pushed the city to consider tolling all four free East River bridges. Mayor Abraham Beame refused, and Congress then moved to forbid the tolls.

A 1990 plan for an airport rail link over the Queensboro Bridge was scaled down to become which service?

AirTrain JFK ended up as a people mover serving only a small part of Queens. The original scheme would have run trains to both of the city's airports by way of the bridge.