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Bill to Fix Verrazano Bridge Spelling Passed by State Senate

By Nicholas Rizzi | June 26, 2017 11:36am | Updated on June 26, 2017 1:21pm
 A parking sticker from the grand opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on Nov. 21, 1964.
A parking sticker from the grand opening of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on Nov. 21, 1964.
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DNAinfo/Nicholas Rizzi

STATEN ISLAND — The city's largest typo could be fixed under orders from Albany.

The state Senate last week passed a bill to fix the official name of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to actually match the spelling of its namesake, Giovanni da Verrazzano, by adding another "z," the Associated Press first reported.

The Assembly version of the bill has been stuck in committee.

The bridge was named to honor the Italian explorer, but New York officials got it wrong and spelled it with only one "z" instead of the proper two. The MTA has said the bridge opened in 1964 with the error and it was never corrected.

"This historic bridge that New Yorkers have relied upon has regrettably been spelled incorrectly for decades," said Assemblyman Michael Cusick, who introduced the bill to fix the spelling earlier this year. "With respect to the Italian explorer who was the first to explore New York Harbor, we should rectify this mistake immediately."

Last year, Dyker Heights resident Robert Nash started a petition to fix the error that eventually got 643 signatures.

The MTA said it had no plans to change the name because it would be too costly to install new signs. When the Triborough Bridge became the R.F.K. Bridge in 2008, the state spent $4 million for the road signs, the New York Times reported.

The Brooklyn-to-Staten Island span crosses New York Harbor and was named after Verrazzano, who in 1524 was the first European to navigate into the body of water, according to the city Parks Department, (which spells his name correctly on its statue of the explorer in The Battery.)