New Effort Surfaces to Restore Tappan Zee Bridge Name

By Rick Pezzullo—

Another effort is underway to try to bring back the Tappan Zee Bridge name.

A new petition calling on the New York State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul was launched on www.change.org a few weeks ago by Joel Berry and has attracted 8,629 signatures to date.

That is a far cry from 2017 when a similar petition garnered more than 263,000 signatures but fell flat when the Gov. Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge was changed to the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge when the new span was unveiled.

The 2017 change honored former Governor Mario Cuomo and was spearheaded by his son, Andrew Cuomo, who was governor at the time, as part of a budget deal.

According to the new petition, “The change to “Mario M. Cuomo Bridge” in 2017 bypassed longstanding naming norms and erased a meaningful part of the region’s cultural and linguistic history. The renaming was pushed through during a moment of concentrated political influence and has remained unpopular with residents ever since.”

Bringing back the name Tappan Zee, which many motorists still refer to the bridge, would honor the indigenous heritage of the Tappan, which were a Lenape subgroup that lived along the Hudson River for centuries, according to the petition.

In addition, the petition states “Tappan Zee s not just a label — it’s a beloved regional landmark name carried through generations. It appears in literature, local business names, oral histories, and family memories.”

The first step in the process would be for someone to introduce legislation in the Senate and Assembly and for both governing bodies to pass it.

The bridge first opened in 1955 and was renamed in honor of Gov. Wilson by Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1994.

 

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