On June 26, 1976, to celebrate the United States' 200th anniversary, workers placed a very large U.S. flag on the side of the Verrazzano Bridge. The flag, which measured , was described in "The New York Times" as being the size of "a football field and a half" and billed as the world's largest flag. At the time, it was the largest U.S. flag ever made. The flag was supposed to withstand wind speeds of , but it ripped apart three days later, when there was a wind speed of . The flag had been stuck against the bridge's suspender cables, so any slight wind would have caused the cables to make tears in the flag. A second flag was created in 1980 for the July 4 celebration that year. This flag was even larger at (an area of ). The new flag was placed along a steel grid so that the suspender cables would not rip it apart. Architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable derided the new flag as a "simple-minded, vainglorious proposal" and asked, "Does anyone really want to spend $850,000 to upstage the Statue of Liberty?"