soymilk and fritos? what on earth does that mean? if you're going to make a snarky remark about new yorkers, at least make one that possesses some sort of validity.
i understand that many people outside of new york have no cause to think of the brooklyn bridge, much less cherish it. however, does that mean it - and the unobstructed atmosphere it creates - is not worth preserving? if they ran an article about a monument in a "flyover state" being impinged upon in a similar manner, do you think new yorkers would say "to hell with it - it's not new york?" no. as americans, we should value all our national treasures, no matter where they might be. and to create a building that allows only a select (and i'm guessing wealthy) few to fully enjoy this treasure is just wrong.
A Masterpiece in Jeopardy
The biographer of the great Brooklyn Bridge on how a proposed new building could ruin an icon of American ingenuity.
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Since publishing this story, NEWSWEEK has heard from both the developers and architects defending their proposed building, which was approved by the community board earlier this week. For their reaction, head to Readback.
The most long lasting of great American works, the structure destined "to convey some knowledge of us to remote posterity," said a New York writer long ago, was "not a shrine, not a fortress, not a palace, but a bridge." That was in the spring of 1883, 126 years past, when the completed Brooklyn Bridge opened to the most exuberant public celebration of the era, complete with the president of the United States, Chester A. Arthur, leading the grand parade on foot from New York to Brooklyn over the bridge high above the East River.
"The Great Bridge" was news everywhere. It was the moon shot of its time, a brave, surpassing technical triumph, and more. For it was besides a great work of art and a thrilling overture to the high-rise city in America. Its giant granite towers stood taller by far than anything on the New York skyline, taller indeed than any structure in all of North America then. Over the years it has been photographed more than anything ever built by Americans. It has been the inspiration for songs, poems, paintings, no end of personal reminiscences and thesetting for scenes in movies. It has remained New York's most famous, best-loved landmark.
Above all it has stood through good times and bad as a majestic symbol of affirmation, still there, still spanning the river for all to see and enjoy, to cross by automobile or bicycle, or stroll on a fine day over its one-of-a-kind boardwalk.
To my mind a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge is an American experience not to be missed, a Northeastern, big-city equivalent, if you will, of being on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Americans of every kind, every race and color, worked on it. Its designer, the brilliant John A. Roebling, was an immigrant from Germany. His son Washington Roebling, its builder, had been a hero in the Civil War, the first man on Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg. Washington Roebling's wife, Emily Warren Roebling, who served as his unofficial assistant engineer and life support when he was incapacitated, ranks among the most remarkable American women of her time.
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