Toward the end of 1964, the Verrazano (or, more properly, Verrazzano) Narrows Bridge—linking the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island—was completed. Fifty years later, it remains an engineering marvel. At 13,700 feet (more than two and a half miles), it is still the longest suspension bridge in the United States and the sixth longest in the world.

Gay Talese, then early in his career at the New York Times, closely followed the construction, and soon after the opening of this marvel of human ingenuity and engineering, he chronicled the human drama of its completion—from the construction workers high on the beams to the backroom dealing that displaced whole neighborhoods to make way for the bridge. Now in a new, beautifully packaged edition featuring dozens of breathtaking photos and architectural drawings, The Bridge remains both a riveting narrative of politics and courage and a demonstration of Talese’s consummate reporting and storytelling that will captivate new generations of readers.