San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge may have the advantage of instant recognizability, but it didn’t achieve Hollywood fame on the level of its New York competitor, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, star of the popular 1977 feature Saturday Night Fever. First proposed by Robert Moses, the State Parks Commissioner, its completion formed the last piece of his expressway design over the five boroughs.

On this day, November 21, in 1964, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened officially opened. It’s named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, a French explorer considered the first European to enter New York harbor.

The bridge spans “The Narrows” between Staten Island and Brooklyn, but the name when applied to the bridge is somewhat deceptive. The Verrazano-Narows by length is actually longer than the Golden Gate, and when opened, took over the record of world’s longest suspension bridge, holding it until the completion of the Humber Bridge in England.