Construction of the George Washington Bridge began with a groundbreaking ceremony in Fort Lee, New Jersey on September 21, 1927, as Othmar Ammann's engineering vision was turned into a functioning facility. Foundations were excavated and built, followed by the towers and anchorages, then the four main cables were spun, suspender cables were attached, and roadway beams were secured to the suspenders. In just over four years, workers and machines poured hundreds of thousands of yards of concrete, strung 107,000 miles of galvanized steel wire for the cables, and fastened together tons of structural steel. Cass Gilbert had drawn plans to clad the support towers in masonry, but that idea was dropped at the start of the Great Depression, leaving the stark steel towers to give the bridge a distinctive beauty. The bridge was completed eight months ahead of schedule and substantially under its $60 million budget.
