On October 22, the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel officially became the Hugh Carey Tunnel. A week later, Sandy hit our area. The tunnel was flooded and closed, finally reopening in both directions on November 19.
Yet it seems that the new name really hasn’t stuck with most newscasters — ok EVERYBODY YOU KNOW.
This despite former Mayor Ed Koch’s solid reasoning for honoring New York’s 51st governor. “He was one of the great governors of the state of New York, vastly unappreciated,” Koch told CBS New York. “Without him we would’ve crashed and gone into bankruptcy.”
Carey was a Brooklynite, born here in 1919. The New York Times wrote about Carey and his wife raising their 14 children in Park Slope. The Helen Owen Carey Child Development Center, which Carey established after her death in 1974, is still in operation in that neighborhood.
So let’s say it all together now – THE HUGH CAREY TUNNEL!!!!
