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This week 66 years ago, a tunnel opened that linked New York City and New Jersey. This might not seem like a very big deal. But the Holland Tunnel goes underneath the Hudson River.

Before the Holland Tunnel was built, the only way to get between New York and New Jersey was by ferry boat. By the early 1900s, more than 20,000 cars and trucks crossed by ferry every day. This was too much traffic for the boats to handle. At first, people wanted to build a bridge across the river. However, soon it became clear that a tunnel was a better choice.

Now, more than 100,000 vehicles pass through the Holland Tunnel every day. In fact, since it opened, more than one billion vehicles have passed through it. The men who designed the tunnel worried about all the pollution this would cause. There is no natural way for fresh air to come into the tunnel. Pollution could get trapped inside. So one of the men who designed the tunnel came up with a great plan to solve this problem. At both ends of the tunnel are buildings with huge fans in them. These fans blow polluted air out of the Holland Tunnel and move clean air in. Each of the 84 fans is almost as big across as a ten-story building! If these fans didn't work, the carbon monoxide and other poisonous chemicals from the car engines would make travelers very sick.

The longest part of the Holland Tunnel is 8,558 feet long. When it was built, it was the longest underwater tunnel in the world. But now there are other tunnels that are longer. One of these longer tunnels is sometimes called the "Chunnel" . This stands for "Channel Tunnel." The Chunnel passes under the English Channel. It links England and France. The "Chunnel" measures 163,680 feet. This is almost 30 miles longer than the Holland Tunnel!

Thought Questions Why do you think the experts decided to build the Holland Tunnel instead of building a bridge across the Hudson River? What might make a tunnel a better choice? What might make a bridge better? Have you ever traveled through the Holland Tunnel? Have you ever traveled through the Chunnel or another underwater tunnel? What was it like? Activity Learn more about the Holland Tunnel along with more tunnels, bridges, skyscrapers, and other structures at Building Big, a website from PBS. Choose one of these amazing structures and do more research on it. What makes this building or structure so amazing? Write a brief report and build a model of this structure to share with your class. Search the site for other stories

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