ALBANY – It’s not a bridge too far quite yet!
Albany Democrats could still greenlight legislation to add the “Tappan Zee” moniker to the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, a compromise proposal after previous efforts to entirely nix the late governor’s name failed.
The proposal passed the state Senate on Wednesday and its Assembly sponsor is bullish about his chamber approving the idea before state lawmakers leave Albany for the year on Friday.
“This is the closest that efforts to get the rightful name ‘Tappan Zee’ back on the bridge have come to accomplishing this goal,” Assemblyman John McGowan (R-Pearl River) said Wednesday.
“As long as we are in the chamber, I will have hope.”
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) did not respond to a request for comment.
Critics of the bill, which was first introduced three years ago, have charged that renaming the bridge would be a waste of time and money.
Local residents have bemoaned the current name of the span, which connects Rockland and Westchester counties across the Hudson, ever since it officially replaced the former Tappan Zee Bridge in 2018.
Some still refuse to acknowledge the change.
“Call me an originalist – but to me, it’ll always be the Tappan Zee,” Rockland native Sarah Donnelly told The Post in February.
The strange-sounding name has a uniquely New York origin.
“The Dutch settlers that came to the Hudson Valley in the 17th Century named this crossing ‘Tappan Zee,’ after a local Indian tribe and the Dutch word for sea,” reads a legislative memo about the proposal. “Changing the name to reflect our region’s rich history is the appropriate path forward and changing the name back to the Tappan Zee Bridge will do just that.”
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo got the state Legislature in 2017 to agree to name the new Hudson River bridge after his father Mario, who served three terms as governor in the 1980s and 1990s, reportedly in return for state budget concessions like a three-year extension of county sales taxes for both upstate and New York City.
His 2021 downfall following a series of scandals that include alleged sexual misconduct and a cover-up of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes – all of which he denies – opened the way for state lawmakers to push to rename the bridge.
“When ‘Tappan Zee’ was stripped away for seemingly no reason beyond our former Governor’s own vanity, many of my Hudson Valley constituents took issue,” said state Sen. James Skoufis (D-New Windsor) who successfully shepherded the bill through his chamber.
“The name change remains a grievance for many local residents who value our region’s history.”
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