Hey buddy! Wanna buy a bridge?

For Labor Day weekend, your Center City Correspondent and Mrs. CCC agreed that it was time to get out of town.  We needed to see different zip codes, to slip the surly confines of Center City, to give our spirits a lift.  So we traded one big town for another, and went to New York for the day.  In the past we’d see a show for half-price, but this time we had our sights set on bigger things to do and see.  One thing that has always captured my imagination is the Brooklyn Bridge with its sturdy stone towers made almost spiritual by the beautiful Gothic arches along with the spider web of cables and suspenders.  To know that a man designed and men built the bridge lets me know that we are all capable of higher goals and accomplishments.  To me it transcends being a utilitarian conveyance and becomes almost a work of art.  A few years back we read a book, The Great Bridge by David McCullough which describes the concept and the building of the bridge, as if you were there.  I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know the political, social and economic stories of two big American cities separated by more than a river, but ultimately brought together by a common undertaking.

So we got into lower Manhattan on a warm summer’s day, and after a quick walk around Ground Zero, we took the subway over to Brooklyn to start our stroll back across the bridge.  It’s all very clearly marked and up a short flight of steps and you have the whole bridge in front of you.  A lot of other people had the same idea too, and they weren’t all New Yorkers.  From what I heard there were people from all over the world who came to see the bridge, and if they are like me, they weren’t disappointed.  It’s less than 1.5 miles over the bridge and you are on a walkway suspended over the roadway so you hardly notice the cars, and it affords you a good view off both sides of the bridge.  Along the way you are treated to the sights of Manhattan, the river and harbor below, the Manhattan Bridge right next door and in the distance, the Statue of Liberty.  But the real treat is the bridge itself.  From a distance, the towers look small, but as you approach them you realize how big and massive they are and the delicate interlacing of the cables gives it a light open feeling.  You are truly standing on a work of art.  After a leisurely stroll back into Manhattan, we rode the subway up to midtown and did some shopping and sightseeing and caught the train back home, all in the same day. 

 
So if your spirit ever needs a little lift, spend a few hours on top of the Brooklyn Bridge.  And don’t let anybody try to sell you the bridge, because I already bought it.