Template:Short description Template:For Template:Infobox river The Tappan Zee (Template:IPAc-en; also Tappan Sea or Tappaan Zee) is a natural widening of the Hudson River, about Template:Convert across at its widest, in southeastern New York. It stretches about Template:Convert along the boundary between Rockland and Westchester counties, downstream from Croton Point to Irvington. Its name is from the Tappan people of the Lenape, and the Dutch word Template:Wikt-lang {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, meaning a sea.<ref>Melvin, Tessa. "If You're Thinking of Living In/Tarrytown; Rich History, Picturesque River Setting", The New York Times, August 21, 1994. Accessed December 30, 2007. "The Dutch called this point, the river's widest, the Tappan Zee — Tappan probably for a group of Indians and Zee meaning "sea" in Dutch."</ref>
Flanked to the west by high steep bluffs of the Palisades, it forms something of a natural lake on the Hudson about Template:Convert north of Manhattan. Communities along the Tappan Zee include Nyack on the western side as well as Ossining and Tarrytown on the eastern side. It was formerly crossed by the Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge, opened in 1955 and about Template:Convert long, connecting Nyack and Tarrytown. It is crossed by the modern Tappan Zee Bridge (officially the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge), which opened in 2017 (north or westbound span) and 2018 (south or eastbound span) at about the same length as the old bridge.
On September 14, 1609, the explorer Henry Hudson entered the Tappan Zee while sailing upstream from New York Harbor. At first, Hudson believed the widening of the river indicated that he had found the Northwest Passage. He proceeded upstream as far as modern Troy before concluding that no such strait existed there.
The Tappan Zee is mentioned several times in Washington Irving's famous short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The tale is set in the vicinity of Tarrytown, in the area near Irving's own home at Sunnyside. In Frederik Pohl's 1977 Hugo Award-winning novel Gateway, the main character Robinette Broadhead has "a summer apartment overlooking the Tappan Sea and The Palisades Dam." Pohl lived in the area while writing the book. Jazz pianist Bob James named one of the tracks from his 1977 album BJ4, in addition to his record label he founded, after the Tappan Zee.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>