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.
- 1
- 2
A Masterpiece in Jeopardy
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
The granite of the towers came from Connecticut and Maine. The steel, from Pittsburgh. In the 14-year struggle to build the bridge, work in the caissons below the river, accidents of all kinds took the lives of more than a dozen men and left many more crippled for life.
In the years since, its importance has seldom ever been doubted or seriously challenged. The sanctity of its own space has been unviolated by and large. Until lately. Now, alas, plans are proceeding to build an 18-story luxury apartment building within a hundred feet of the bridge on the Brooklyn side. (A vote in the process is expected this week.) The building, as proposed by the Two Trees Management Co., would stand 184 feet high and just about ruin the view of the bridge from on shore, as well as the view from the bridge looking toward Brooklyn—in other words, the view for just about everyone except those living in the apartments. To permit such a project so close to the bridge would be a shameful, inexcusable mistake. There is no other way to say it.
Would we wish to see an 18-story building go up beside the Statue of Liberty, or next to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, or beside the Washington Monument? Of course not.
Would the city of Paris permit an 18-story building beside the Arc de Triomphe or Notre Dame? Unthinkable.
Citizens groups in Brooklyn have rallied in a spirited campaign to stop the project. To date, more than 12,000 signatures have been collected in protest. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has taken a strong public stand. "No new structure should be permitted to crowd or upstage the Brooklyn Bridge," says Richard Moe, the head of the trust. "This is a matter of importance not just to New York and Brooklyn, but for all who care about our national treasures."
In his initial proposal for the bridge, John Roebling wrote that it would forever testify to the character of the community that built it. And so it does. The question now is how we in our time will measure up as a community, we who have the responsibility for deciding. How many from around the country will join the protest? Is commercial gain to supercede our affection for the bridge, not to say our obligation as citizens to preserve and protect an enduring American masterpiece? Let us hope not.
“The Great Bridge,” McCullough’s history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, first published in 1972, has never been out of print.
© 2009
- 1
- 2
Discuss