History of Pulaski Skyway: Once 'most beautiful' and always dangerous (2024)

When completed in 1932 at a cost of $20 million, the General Casimir Pulaski Skyway was the most expensive bridge of its day and it was declared the “Most Beautiful Steel Structure” among long-span bridges by the American Institute of Steel Construction.

The 3.5 miles-long, 18 million-pound elevated roadway spans Jersey City to Kearny and peaks at 135 feet over the Hackensack and Passaic rivers, a height that allowed clearance for the war ships of the day, a New Jersey City University website says.

The cost of the Skyway was about the same as the iconic 77-story Chrysler Building in Manhattan, which was completed in 1930, according to NYC-Architecture.com. The Skyway’s riveted-construction — with cantilevered trusses supported by concrete columns — were designed by Danish-born engineer Sigvald Johannesson.

Architectural historian and author John Gomez noted that when famed architect Le Corbusier visited America in the 1920s, he toured the area, including Jersey City, and was fascinated by the Skyway “because he was theorizing about highways in the sky and to him the Pulaski Sky was the epitome of that concept.”

“To him it was a part of New York City because it connected to the Holland Tunnel directly and therefore was an extension of the skyscrapers,” said Gomez. “In a sense, it is a skyscraper. It was the future of cities.”

Gomez noted that in Orson Wells’ famous 1938 radio drama The War of the Worlds, alien forces headed toward New York City following the Skyway.

“No sign of heat ray,” one character says in the broadcast. “Enemy now turns east, crossing Passaic River into the Jersey marshes. Another straddles the Pulaski Skyway. Evident objective is New York City.”

But 80 years later, deterioration of the Skyway has triggered the state Department of Transportation’s $1 billion rehabilitation project that includes closure of the northbound lanes for two years beginning April 12. The entire project is not expected to be completed until 2020, the DOT said.

Today the Skyway carries about 67,000 vehicles each day between Newark and Jersey City and it would cost about $3.2 billion to build today, the DOT says.

The Skyway was part of a 1920s, $40 million project to build a 13.2-mile extension of Route 1 from Elizabeth, through Newark and Jersey City to the site of the Holland Tunnel, which would open in 1927. The need for the project was made clear during the movement of war materials and troops between the Port of New York and New Jersey rail yards during World War 1, the NJCU site says.

The Skyway opened at 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day Nov. 24, 1932 and was dedicated as the General Casimir Pulaski Skyway on Oct. 11, 1933, the anniversary of the death of the Revolutionary War hero whose portrait in bas relief is mounted on the Skyway’s girders.

Pulaski was a polish nobleman who was known as the “Father of the American Cavalry.” He was wounded at the Battle of Savannah, Ga, in 1779 and died aboard a military ship on Oct. 11, 1779. Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague gave the welcoming address at the bridge dedication attended by some 20,000 people in Lincoln Park, the NJCU site says.

The Skyway’s two, 11-foot lanes in each direction with no shoulders in both directions and a “break down” lane at the center rendered it a dangerous roadway and led to its monikers of “death highway” and even “suicide lane.”

“Fearful drivers sped along the highway for a fast exit,” the NJCU site says. “Due to the increasing number of head-on accidents, a concrete median or ‘Jersey barrier’ was added to the center lane” in 1956.

Trucks were originally allowed on the Skyway, but they were banned in 1934 to prevent crashes, according to the DOT. Trucks were then diverted onto Communipaw Avenue, which became known as Route 1&9 Truck, the NJCU site says.

The Skyway is listed on the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places and it caught the public’s eye when used at the beginning of each episode of HBO’s "The Sopranos" series that premiered in 1999.