The Hoboken Historical Museum presents Driving Under the Hudson. The History of the Holland and Lincoln Tunnel an exhibition on view through July 1, 2012.
2012 celebrates 85th anniversary of the Holland Tunnel and the 75th birthday of the Lincoln Tunnel. Love them for the access they provide to New York City, or curse them for the rush-hour traffic that ensnares Hudson County drivers, the tunnels define Hoboken’s northern and southern borders. Today we take them for granted, but when they were built, they were marvels of both engineering prowess and public works initiatives.
The public is invited to explore the tunnels’ back story and ongoing significance in the Museum’s new main gallery exhibit, Driving Under the Hudson: The History of the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels.
The exhibition features original documents such as official correspondence and engineering plans, plus historic newsreel footage, and objects such as a now-defunct “catwalk car,” which was driven along specially constructed side rails to deal with vehicle emergencies. Photographs and oral histories from the original sandhogs involved in the construction of the Lincoln Tunnel will tell their history.
Curators Bob Foster and David Webster were advised by Dr. Angus Gillespie, Professor of American Studies at Rutgers University and author of Crossing Under the Hudson, The Story of the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels (Rutgers Press, 2011); and historian and engineer Robert W. Jackson, author of Highway Under the Hudson: A Story of the Holland Tunnel (New York University Press, 2011). Both authors will be delivering talks in the coming months, along with architectural historian John Gomez, a member of the Museum’s History Advisory Board and a founder of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, and Steven Hart, author of The Last Three Miles: Politics, Murder, and the Construction of America’s First Superhighway, which documents the construction of the Pulaski Skyway.
The exhibit is made possible through funding from the New Jersey Historical Commission, Applied Companies, Bijou Properties, T&M Contracting, United Way of Hudson County, and Wiley & Sons.
Hoboken Historical Museum
1301 Hudson St.
Hoboken, NJ 07030
201.656.2240
[email protected]
www.hobokenmuseum.org