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World's largest suspension span to be opened today

By United Press

NEW YORK -- The George Washington memorial bridge, world's largest suspension span, costing 14 lives and $60,000,000 will be dedicated today to the blare of bands, waving of flags and tramp of marching feet.

Slim, graceful, shining in silvery gray, and huge bridge which links New York and New Jersey, at a distance appears delicate as a spider web. Its mass -- 73,000 tons, twice the weight of the biggest American battleship -- its length -- 3,500 feet -- its strength -- equal to the pull of 4,000 locomotives -- belie its apparent fragility.

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Four great, three-foot-thick cables, looping over the tops of massive steel towers which soar 625 feet above the Hudson, can carry four times the weight of all the traffic the bridge possibly could have crowded on it.

Its capacity is 30,000,000 vehicles annually -- and that is with only four roadways open. The understructure for four more traffic lanes in the center of the bridge is ready for the flooring.

Governor Morgan F. Larson of New Jersey, Governor Roosevelt of New York, Mayor James J. Walker, members of the port authority of the two states which cooperated in building the bridge, and representatives of patriotic organizations will proceed with a military parade from the 102nd engineers' armory in New York to the New Jersey side, then back to the center of the bridge, at the dividing line between the two states.

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There will be speeches by Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams, Governor Roosevelt, Governor Larson, Mayor Walker and others.

Thirty army, navy and national guard plans will fly over the bridge. Then the two governors will break the tape at the center of the bridge, formally opening it. The public later will be allowed to pass over it.

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