George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge carries 14 lanes of traffic across the Hudson River between Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan. Opened in 1931 with a main span of 3,500 feet - nearly double the previous record - it is one of the busiest motor-vehicle bridges in the world, the main northern gateway into New York City.

Its bare steel towers were meant to be clad in granite, but the Depression-era budget left them exposed, and the lattice ironwork became admired in its own right. A second, lower deck was added in 1962 to handle surging traffic, giving the bridge its distinctive double-decked profile.

• New York City
  The largest city in the United States related
• The Hudson River
  The tidal river that made New York the gateway of a continent related