The Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge (originally and often referred to as the Marine Parkway Bridge) is a vertical-lift bridge in New York City, in the U.S. state of New York, that crosses Rockaway Inlet and connects the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, with Flatbush Avenue to Floyd Bennett Field, Belt Parkway, and the Marine Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. Opened on July 3, 1937, it carries four motor traffic lanes, and a footpath on the western edge. The center span is raised and lowered 100 times a year to allow vessels to pass beneath the roadway; it is 540 feet (160 m) long and is only 55 feet (17 m) above the water but can be lifted to a height of 150 feet above the water. Cyclepaths along both sides of the Parkway connect northward to Brooklyn. The operation of this bridge includes the maintenance of the Marine Parkway from the toll plaza to Jacob Riis Park. Though a city-owned and operated bridge, it connects two parts of Gateway National Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park System: Floyd Bennett Field and Jacob Riis Park.