It’s official. A misspelling that stood for decades is finally being corrected.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday signed legislation to fix the spelling of the Verrazano Bridge and add an extra “z” to properly reflect its namesake: Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano.
“The Verrazzano Bridge is a vital transportation artery for millions of Staten Island and Brooklyn residents,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We are correcting this decades-old misspelling out of respect to the legacy of the explorer and to New York’s heritage.”
The law corrects the spelling of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in a “number of respective state statutes,” according to a news release from Cuomo. MTA will go about making the correction for the iconic span, built in 1964, as signage is naturally replaced over time. In total there are 96 signs that will be changed “under a normal schedule of maintenance,” according to MTA spokesman Jon Weinstein.
Brooklyn Sen. Marty Golden, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, assured in a statement that the gradual sign replacement will have “no cost to the taxpayers.”
Assemblymember Michael Cusick, the bill’s Assembly sponsor, called the changes “critical” in a statement, adding that the sign replacements would take place over the next several years.
