Lincoln Tunnel Under Construction - 1937
The Day the River Let us Through
The roar came first.
Not applause—engines.
Frank O’Donnell stood just inside the mouth of the tunnel, boots planted on concrete he had helped pour with his own hands. The smell of oil and damp stone still clung to the air, familiar as his own skin. For years, this place had been nothing but darkness, mud, and pressure that made your ears scream and your chest feel like it might cave in.
Now, sunlight spilled in.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Frank muttered.
Beside him, Tommy Russo adjusted his cap and squinted as the first line of cars rolled through, headlights flickering off the tiled walls. “You hear that?” Tommy said. “That’s not the river trying to kill us. That’s traffic.”
Frank let out a dry laugh. “I’ll take traffic any day.”
A horn blared. Then another. Tires hummed over the smooth roadbed they’d spent years leveling inch by inch, sometimes ankle-deep in muck, sometimes waist-deep. Frank remembered the worst days—compressed air chambers, bodies aching, men carried out pale and shaking from the bends.
“You remember the cave-in?” Tommy asked quietly, like he’d been reading Frank’s thoughts.
Frank nodded. “November ’35. Lost Jimmy that day.”
They stood in silence as a truck rumbled past, loaded with crates bound for Manhattan.
“He should’ve been here,” Tommy said.
“Yeah,” Frank replied. “But this is his work too.”
A man in a clean coat—some city official—walked past them, smiling wide. “Gentlemen,” he said, clapping his hands once, “you built a miracle.”
Frank looked down at his callused palms, cracked and scarred, the nails permanently darkened no matter how much scrubbing he did. Miracle wasn’t the word he would’ve chosen.
“It’s just a tunnel,” Frank said.
Tommy snorted. “That’s sandhog talk.”
Another car passed, then another, families inside, couples laughing, a kid in the back seat pressing his face to the glass in wonder.
Frank felt something tighten in his chest.
“All those years,” he said slowly. “Digging under a river that wants you dead. And now look at it. People just… drive through. Like it’s nothing.”
Tommy smiled. “That’s how you know we did it right.”
Frank nodded. He imagined himself years from now, stuck in traffic like everyone else, tapping the wheel, complaining about delays.
And no one would know.
No one would know about the darkness, the danger, the men who sweated and bled so others could pass beneath the Hudson in a matter of minutes.
Frank turned and took one last look down the tunnel, lights stretching forward in a clean, perfect line.
“Well,” he said, exhaling, “I guess we’re done.”
Tommy clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah. Let the river worry about someone else now.”
They stepped aside as the city poured through—proof that the work was finished, and finally, worth it.
Frank didn’t leave right away.
He watched the traffic pattern settle into something steady and predictable, the way chaos always did once men were done wrestling it into submission. The tunnel’s ventilation fans hummed overhead—quiet now, but powerful enough to keep the air moving for thousands of engines that would pass through each day. That alone had taken years of planning. No one wanted another disaster underground.
He remembered the warnings posted at the entrance during construction: Compressed Air Zone. Ascend Slowly. Men learned quickly to respect those signs. Ignore them, and the river didn’t have to touch you to kill you. It could get inside your blood.
Back then, the city felt far away. Underground, there were no headlines, no speeches—just shifts measured in hours and pressure gauges. You learned to read a man’s face instead of a clock. Learned when to joke, when to shut up, when to pull someone back before they pushed too far.
Most of them had come for the same reason. The Depression didn’t leave many choices. The tunnel paid steady, and steady meant food on the table. Frank had a wife in Jersey City and a boy who liked toy cars. He used to imagine those little cars driving through this place someday, not knowing whose hands had carved the way.
A radio crackled somewhere behind him, announcing the opening ceremony farther up the line. Flashbulbs popped. Someone laughed too loud. Frank stayed where he was.
He thought about how the river had fought them the whole way—leaks, shifts, cold seepage that crept into your bones. They sealed it inch by inch, refusing to rush. That was the rule underground: slow is safe, and safe is survival.
Another convoy of vehicles rolled through. Buses now. Commuters. The ordinary rhythm of life reclaiming a place that had once felt like a grave.
Tommy glanced back once before disappearing into the crowd. “See you topside,” he called.
Frank raised a hand in reply.
He took a final walk along the edge, fingertips brushing the wall where chalk marks once tracked progress and losses. Most of those marks were gone now, painted over, smoothed out. That was how history worked. The scars faded, but the structure remained.
Outside, the winter air cut sharp against his face. He welcomed it.
For the first time in years, there was no shift tomorrow. No whistle. No descent.
Just a road beneath a river—and the quiet satisfaction of knowing it would outlast him.
Historical Synopsis
On December 22, 1937, the Lincoln Tunnel officially opened to traffic, creating the first permanent vehicular connection beneath the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey. The opening marked a major milestone in American engineering, transportation, and labor history.
Construction of the tunnel began in 1934 during the Great Depression and relied heavily on “sandhogs”—skilled tunnel workers who labored under extreme conditions using pressurized air to prevent river water from flooding the excavation. These conditions exposed workers to serious health risks, including decompression sickness, commonly known as “the bends.” Despite frequent accidents and fatalities, the project continued steadily, providing much-needed employment during a period of widespread economic hardship.
The Lincoln Tunnel dramatically reduced reliance on ferries and reshaped daily commuting, commercial shipping, and regional development in the New York metropolitan area. More broadly, it stood as a symbol of Depression-era resilience, demonstrating how large-scale public infrastructure projects could unite engineering innovation with human endurance to transform American urban life.
This story is based on documented historical records and contemporaneous accounts
Works Cited
American Society of Civil Engineers. Lincoln Tunnel. ASCE Metropolitan Section, www.asce.org/metsection/lincoln-tunnel.
Federal Highway Administration. Engineering the Lincoln Tunnel. U.S. Department of Transportation, www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/tunnel.cfm.
Jackson, Kenneth T. Encyclopedia of New York City. 2nd ed., Yale University Press, 2010.
“Lincoln Tunnel Opens to Traffic.” The New York Times, 22 Dec. 1937, p. 1.