Brooklyn Bridge

Brooklyn Bridge
Carries	Motor vehicles (cars only), elevated trains (until 1944), streetcars (until 1950), pedestrians, and bicycles
Crosses	East River
Locale	New York City (Manhattan – Brooklyn)
Maintained by	New York City Department of Transportation
Design	Suspension bridge
Total length	5,989 feet
Width	85 feet
Clearance below	135 feet at mid-span
AADT	145,000
Opening date	May 24, 1883
Toll	Free both ways
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

For other uses, see Brooklyn Bridge (disambiguation).

East River Bridge redirects here. For a list of East River Bridges, see List of fixed crossings of the East River.

The Brooklyn Bridge (originally the New York and Brooklyn Bridge), one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretches 5,989 feet over the East River connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. On completion, it was the largest suspension bridge in the world and the first, steel-wire suspension bridge. Since its opening, it has become an iconic part of the New York Skyline.

Plan of one tower for the Brooklyn Bridge, 1867.

Construction began in January 3, 1870. The Brooklyn Bridge was completed 13 years later and was opened for use on May 24, 1883. On that first day, a total of 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed. Now, the bridge carries an an average of 145,000 vehicle per day..

2003 plot

In 2003, truck driver Iyman Faris was sentenced to 20 years in prison for providing material support to al-Qaeda, after an earlier plot to destroy the bridge by cutting through its support wires with blowtorches was cancelled.

Cultural significance

File:BrooklynBridgeDetail.jpg

Looking up at a tower

File:Brooklyn Bridge at Night.jpg

Brooklyn Bridge at night

Contemporaries marveled at what technology was capable of and the bridge became a symbol of the optimism of the time. John Perry Barlow wrote in the late-twentieth century of the "literal and genuinely religious leap of faith" embodied in the Brooklyn Bridge … the Brooklyn Bridge required of its builders faith in their ability to control technology." References to "selling the Brooklyn Bridge" abound in American culture, sometimes as examples of rural gullibility but more often in connection with an idea that strains credulity. For example, "If you believe that, I have a wonderful bargain for you…" References are often nowadays more oblique, such as "I could sell you some lovely riverside property in Brooklyn ... "

In his second book The Bridge, Hart Crane begins with a poem entitled "Poem: To Brooklyn Bridge." The bridge was a source of inspiration for Crane and he owned different apartments specifically to have different views of the bridge.

Kurt Vonnegut references the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge in his 1987 novel Bluebeard. "If I had taken his money, it would have been like selling him Brooklyn Bridge."

Trivia

Brooklyn approach with elevated BMT and streetcar tracks and trains, ca. 1905

• The BMT bridge tracks were planned to connect to what is now the Nassau Street Line subway at Chambers Street to form part of the never-finished Centre Street Loop.
• The bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1977 and on March 24, 1983 the bridge was designated a National Historic Engineering Landmark.
• A week after the opening, on May 30, 1883, a rumor that the Bridge was going to break down caused a stampede which crushed and then killed twelve people.
• The first person to jump from the bridge was Robert E. Odlum on July 23, 1886. Robert, a swimming teacher, made the jump in a costume bearing his initials. He survived the pre-announced jump, but died shortly thereafter from internal injuries.

Film

• In Disney's 1988 film Oliver & Company, the Brooklyn Bridge is depicted having subway railroads. It was first shown when the villain Sykes goes after Fagin, Jenny, and their pets.
• In 2006's Superman Returns, the bridge is seen in several scenes. In addition, Superman and Lois Lane fly parallel to the bridge.
• In the 1998 American version of Godzilla, the bridge is attacked by Zilla, otherwise called the American Godzilla, destroying the towers and steel beams.
• In the 1998 film Deep Impact, a tsunami caused by a comet crashing into the Atlantic Ocean destroyed the bridge.
• The Brooklyn Bridge is featured at the end of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, and in the 2004 film Team America: World Police.
• The bridge is prominently featured in the 2005 film Fantastic Four, starring Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis. Scenes depicting the roadway of the bridge were actually filmed on a set in Vancouver, Canada using a green screen and CGI (Computer-generated imagery) technology.
• The DVD cover for the film The Siege shows an image of the Brooklyn Bridge being destroyed in a terrorist attack. In the film this attack is not shown, although the bridge is used as an escape from Manhattan during terrorist attacks.
• The movie Virginal Young Blondes (2004) also takes place on the Brooklyn Bridge, when the two main characters get stoned together in the movie's last scenes.
• The Bugs Bunny cartoon Bowery Bugs "explains" the legend of why Steve Brodie jumped from the bridge, and ends with Bugs closing a sale of the bridge to the person to whom he has narrated the story. Although Steve Brodie was a real saloon owner operating near the bridge, his 1886 leap is widely believed to be a self-promoting myth.
• In the 1982 film Sophie's Choice, writer Nathan Landau (played by Kevin Kline) stands on the bridge with his lover Sophie (Meryl Streep) and his protégé Stingo (Peter MacNicol) evoking the names of great Brooklyn writers such as Herman Melville and Hart Crane.
• In the 1992 movie "Newsies" Jack Kelly (Christian Bale) and Boots (Arvie Lowe Jr.) scream off the Brooklyn Bridge on their way to see Spot Conlon (Gabriel Damon) in Brooklyn.
• The 2006 movie "Night at the Museum" begins with an uncredited cameo of the bridge.

Television

• A TV show called Brooklyn Bridge aired in prime time from 1991 through 1993 on CBS.
• An aerial view of the Brooklyn Bridge, in winter, with snow on the pedestrian path, is featured in the opening sequence to Law and Order SVU

• A dramatization of the challenges faced by the Roebling family during construction of the bridge are portrayed in the BBC documentary series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World.
• On The Fairly OddParents, a short scene of the world laughing at the end of the episode "Information Stupor Highway" shows New York City laughing with an animated Brooklyn Bridge.
• The span is seen in several episodes of The Cosby Show.
• The bridge is used in the season 3 opener of CSI: NY, People with Money, where a young couple was murdered while allegedly "having sex". A woman in this episode was attacked by a keychain knife, leading the detectives to investigate the heinous crime.
• In the cartoon The Fairly OddParents, Cosmo tells Timmy that a man sold him the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.
• The music video for Taking Back Sunday's "You're So Last Summer" features the bridge as a backdrop.
• In Aftershock: Earthquake in New York, the bridge is seen destroyed after an earthquake strikes New York City.

Other Media

File:Brooklyn Bridge poŝtmarko DE 2006.jpg

German stamp of 2006, showing the Brooklyn Bridge

• A German stamp of 2006 shows the bridge.
• The bridge is part of the cover of the book Twin Towers.
• The bridge is part of the cover of the schoolbook "English G2000 A4"
• The bridge is featured in SimCity 3000, and in SimCity 4: Rush Hour as the "Medium Suspension" bridge type for avenues and highways.
• The bridge was blown up by Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in an issue of Ultimate X-Men.
• In The Amazing Spider-Man comic books (issue #121), Spider-Man's girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, is kidnapped and held at a bridge by the Green Goblin. The artwork depicts the Brooklyn Bridge, but the editor mistakenly labelled it as the George Washington Bridge.
• In the 1998 video game Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA, the New York Downtown course begins at the Brooklyn end of the bridge, and proceeds to the Civic Center of Lower Manhattan before turning north towards Chinatown, Little Italy, and Greenwich Village. The bridge is bypassed on subsequent laps, in much the same way as the Golden Gate Bridge in the game's predecessor, San Francisco Rush, and the player is barred from re-entering it once he/she has left it.
• The Money Song from Monty Python's Flying Circus features the line And my dollar bills could buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
• The bridge appears in the Xbox 360 racing game Project Gotham Racing 3.
• Irish rock band U2 played a free concert under the bridge at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park on November 22, 2004 in support of their album released that day, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Select songs from the concert were later released in December 2004 in the digital EP through iTunes, Live from Under the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Australian musician Darren Hanlon wrote a song titled Brooklyn Bridge for his Little Chills album.
• The play A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller is a reference to the Brooklyn Bridge which was symbolic of the link between American life in Manhattan and the Italian way of living in communities in Brooklyn.
• A replica of the bridge appears in the Namco video game Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War in a fictional college town called Bana City. The replica bridge is called Marvin Bridge. In the scenario terrorists use nerve gas in the city which leads to pursuit of a van. The crisis was settled with neutralizers dropped from the air, and the terrorists were arrested in the middle of the bridge. Mission 11b - Reprisal.
• In the anime Negima!, a battle takes place on a bridge with a design based on, possibly identical, to the Brooklyn Bridge.
• The bridge is shown in the opening theme of the 80's sitcom Who's the Boss.

File:Panorma BB.jpg

A panorama of the bridge

File:Brooklyn Bridge panorama 2006.jpg

A view of the bridge and Brooklyn taken from Pier 17, Manhattan

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Cadbury, Deborah (2004), Dreams of Iron and Steel, New York, NY, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-716307-X
• Haw, Richard. The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History, Rutgers University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0813535875
• Latimer, Margaret. Bridge to the Future: A Centennial Celebration of the Brooklyn Bridge, New York Academy of Sciences, 1984. ISBN 978-
• McCullough, David. G. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, Simon & Schuster, 2001. ISBN 978-0743217378
• Shapiro, Mary J. A Picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge, Dover Publications, 1983. ISBN 978-0486244037

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Brooklyn Bridge

• Structurae: Brooklyn Bridge
• The story of Brooklyn Bridge - by CBS Forum
• Panorama of Brooklyn Bridge 1899 - Extreme Photo Constructions
• Great Buildings entry for the Brooklyn Bridge
• American Society of Civil Engineers
• Brooklyn Bridge Webcam
• Photographs 2006
• gallery of photographs

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