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The longest suspension bridge in the world

Verrazano, an Italian about whom little is known, sailed into New York harbor in 1524 and named it Angouleme. He describled it as “a very agreeable situation located within two small hills in the midst of which flowed a great river”. Though Verrazano is by no means considered to be a great explorer, his name will probably remain immortal, for on November 21st, 1964, the longest suspension bridge in the world was named after him.

The Verrazano Bridge, which was designed by Othmar Ammann, joins Brooklyn to Staten Island. It has a span of 4260 feet, the bridge is so long that the shape of the earth had to be taken into account by designer, two great towers support four huge cables, the towers are built on immense underwater platforms made of steel and concrete, the platforms extend to a depth of over 100 feet under the sea, these alone takes 16 months to build, above the surface of the water, the towers rise to a height of nearly 700 feet, they support the cables from which the bridge have been suspended, each of the four cables contains 26,108 lengths of wire. It has been estimated that if the bridge were packed with cars, it was still only be carrying a third of fatal capacity. However, size and strength are not the only important things about this bridge, despite the immensity, it is both simple and elegant, fulfilling its designer’s dream to create ‘an enormous object drawn as faintly as possible.

知道这篇文章哪里来的吗？新概念第三册17课，初中的时候还背过。再有，感觉老式的英式语法怎么跟现在的有点不一样呢？还有，这篇文章其实一点都不咋地，读一下，全都是it is, it was…

Anyway, here it is…