The first cars travelled through the then Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in 1950. It cost 35 cents at the time. Decades and more than nine dollars per trip later the Brooklyn-Manhattan connector was considered the gateway to the nine eleven pile. And 60 million gallons of seawater flooded it during Hurricane Sandy. Before the pandemic, 57 thousand people traveled through the tunnel each day.

"The need for a bridge or a tunnel at the time was evident that they... to move people from the, the outer boroughs to Manhattan at that specific location," said Danny DeCrescenzo, Acting President of MTA Bridges and Tunnels.

The 1.7 mile long Hugh L Carey Tunnel is the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel on the continent.