A bridge of dreams and ambitions opened 140 years ago today

Good morning. It is Wednesday. We will congratulate the Brooklyn Bridge for someone who says it was and is a symbol of progress and optimism.

In many ways, it still stands alone. It is the only bridge that many New Yorkers walk every day. It is the only bridge on tourists’ must-see lists. It is the only bridge that was the subject of historian David McCullough’s best-selling book in the 1970s and filmmaker Ken Burns’ first documentary in the 1980s. For this anniversary, Burns’s cameras rolled as he walked across the bridge with The Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman for a short film for Burns’ website, UNUM. And I talked to Michael about the bridge and its place in the city – and in our lives.

Something I recently read said that in the 1880s, New York was moving into its new role as a world-class city. The bridge certainly helped to become that, both symbolically and literally, didn’t it?

A hundred percent. The bridge was, not only for New York but for America in general, the great symbol of 19th century progress and optimism. It was an era that we now forget was an extraordinary time of change and connection. You had the transcontinental railroad. You had the transoceanic cable. You had the Suez Canal. These were all built around the same time. We were shrinking the world.

In New York itself, the bridge connected two separate cities, Brooklyn and New York, in anticipation of what would become one big city. It was the bridge that offered a different, simpler and faster way to get from Brooklyn to New York, where previously the only way was by boat, which was often difficult in winter and, of course, bad weather.

But the bridge did something else. It created a public street, a great public square in the sky, this huge road that literally connected the two. Suddenly they became one. That is an important reason why the bridge remains our great civic symbol of hope and possibility.

And besides, the Brooklyn Bridge was bigger than anything else at the time.

This bridge was of a scale unimaginable in America. It resembled what Gothic cathedrals were in the 13th century, something so unbelievably grand and seemingly impossible that there was something otherworldly about it.

You have to imagine that people going up the bridge were at a height where no human had been before in this part of the world. They were suddenly on a mountain built in the middle of the river, looking down at birds flying below them. It was so grand that it redefined the city’s aspirations for the next century.

There was a moment in that movie with a shot from the ’70s or ’80s, probably, where the twin towers above and behind were perfectly framed. The scene was all that represented New York – old New York, represented by the bridge and the skyscrapers rising above it.

If you describe it against the background of the Twin Towers, then the Twin Towers were also about reaching for the sky. Now when skyscrapers go up, they always meet with a huge amount of animosity about how the city is getting too big and too inhumane. There is none of that sense of awe and wonder.

When the bridge opened, there was a party like New York had never seen before. It represented the dream of New York and actually the dream of the 19th century.

Now we miss that — I don’t know if you would call it optimism, but that sense of a future.

However, the interesting thing about that particular juxtaposition between the Twin Towers and the Brooklyn Bridge is that the bridge was this incredible combination of state-of-the-art engineering and these Gothic towers that denote something traditional, spiritual, and artistic.

It was technique And art.

Yes absolutely. That was the intention of the Roeblings from the very beginning, to create something that was more than just a technical work that would endure. It was something that would stand the test of time as a work of art. That’s what you still see. You still see the Brooklyn Bridge as eternal and amazing.

It has a presence like nothing in New York City, which is why it’s plagued every day by people who go there like they’re going to Notre Dame or Chartres or Westminster. It seems like you are in contact with something much bigger than yourself. It doesn’t just feel like a piece of infrastructure.

But perhaps the most essential aspect of it is that it is an open space for everyone.

From the moment it opened, anyone could walk on that bridge.

It was not limited by class or race. It was felt, I think, as a project for the people, really for the people.

And it lasted. It held up.

Yes. I mean, we rebuilt La Guardia Airport, which was quite an achievement. To do it while the airport was open was great, and it sure is better. But the Brooklyn Bridge will still be remembered a thousand years from now. I don’t think the renovation of La Guardia will be remembered in a thousand years.

That is nothing against the renovation of La Guardia. But it’s hard to imagine the last time we did anything in New York or America that had such great ambition or seemed as transformative or huge as the bridge.

So the bridge immediately became a part of the city and, generation after generation, has since played a part in the significance of the city itself and its significance of all the issues to be reckoned with.

When Burns made the movie 40 years ago, New York was dilapidated and the bridge was a reminder of what the city had once been.

There was a kind of faith around the bridge at the time in a city that was struggling.

The city is very different now, with very different problems. It’s a priceless place. We are faced with climate issues. We have a huge problem of homelessness.

But there’s still something reassuring about the bridge — about our ability as a city to aim for and achieve great, impossible things.

It’s truly remarkable that 140 years later it still plays this role in our lives as a reminder of what we’re capable of – and perhaps it’s a stimulus too. I like to think that way. In a city where we often feel overwhelmed or battered, the bridge is a place to reflect on what New York really is, a place of dreams and aspirations.

I took my youngest son the other day. He was a little skeptical – it was a Sunday morning, like why are we getting up early to do this. But I could see, as we got to the middle of the bridge where the view opens up, that even a hardened New Yorker like him thought, “Wow, it’s so cool.”

Weather

Enjoy a sunny day with an altitude of almost 74 and light winds. A small chance of showers early in the night and then becoming partly cloudy, with a minimum around 52.

ALTERNATIVE SIDE PARKING

Effective until Friday (Shavuot).

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METROPOLITAN Diary

A house

Dear Diary:

My hair is now more silver than dark brown and I no longer call myself middle-aged. But I do try to stay fit and active and I don’t feel like the years are weighing on me too much.

One day I was leaving my home, a Federal-style row house near Downtown Brooklyn, when I came across a woman standing on the sidewalk, looking at the house.

“This is a beautiful house,” she said. “I always notice it when I pass by.”

We talked briefly about the house and its history.

“It’s almost 200 years old,” I explained.

“Wow!” the woman answered. “Are you the original owner?”

— Laura McCallum

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.