The 1883 Brooklyn Bridge physically linked Brooklyn and New York City for the first time. Development on both sides of the East River has accelerated since then, but in drastically different ways. Brooklyn retains pockets of older, predominantly residential buildings. Lower Manhattan has long been known for its massive office buildings. Both areas are now seeing substantial investment in high-rise residential towers.
Geography of these areas allows residents and visitors ample access to the waterfronts surrounding the islands. Recent works of landscape architecture enhance these connections and bring further focus to the critical link that the landmark Brooklyn Bridge provides, connecting past, present, and future.
Federal style row houses are the dominant vernacular architecture near Downtown Brooklyn. Some of these feature wood cornices.Contemporary row houses near Downtown Brooklyn.A 1930’s art deco apartment building in Brooklyn.Typical 3-bay row houses in various syles.Variable-height 3-bay rowhouses.Entry door surrounds offer a primary means to distinguish between individuals in this row of brownstones.A Romanesque Revival brownstone articulates a long row of houses with its projecting bay windows.Rowhouses mix with larger buildings in denser areas.Rowhouses stepping down toward the East River.Four consecutive row houses featuring similar detailing, especially in the wood spandrels that group the 2nd and 3rd floor windows into an atypical vertical expression.A taller Romanesque Revival apartment building separates the surrounding row houses from a freeway and the waterfront.Brooklyn Bridge Park overlooks the East River and Lower Manhattan.Lower Manhattan and the East River.A series of projecting piers-turned-parks frame views back to Brooklyn Heights.Pier 3 park is developed as greenspace surrounded by a paved walkway.Wood pilings from an abandoned pier articulate the river’s waves.The Squibb Park Bridge connects Brooklyn Heights down to the waterfront parks.Trees framed a stepped pathway into the lawns on pier 1.Trees frame a view of lower Manhattan. Trees frame a view of the Brooklyn Bridge’s tower from the pier 1 park.Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge.The Brooklyn Bridge arches gracefully across the East River.The Brooklyn Bridge features a unique combination of vertical suspension ties with diagonal cable stays radiating from the towers.The Brooklyn approach span floats across a cluster of buildings before touching down.This monumental brick building across the street from the Brooklyn approach span was not erected until 10 years after the bridge opened.Brooklyn Bridge approach span with open-web steel joist trusses spanning to the suspension hangers.As the Brooklyn Bridge meets the massive masonry anchorage, the alignment continues on fill for several blocks.The new Olympia DUMBO building gestures across the Brooklyn Bridge to Lower Manhattan.The Brooklyn Bridge promenade, now devoted exclusively to pedestrians with the recent conversion of a vehicle lane to bike lanes on the main bridge deck.Manhattan Bridge from the Brooklyn Bridge.The main suspension cables rise above the deck.As the suspension cables rise to the towers, the diagonal cable stays become more apparent.Vertical suspenders and diagonal cable stays intersect to form a redundant, networked web of structural elements.Light tension members meet the heavy masonry of the Brooklyn Tower.The Brooklyn Tower.The tension network frames the Lower Manhattan skyline.Narrow valleys of open sky emerge between each vertical plane of tension elements.Stiffening trusses and bracing over the Manhattan-bound roadway ground a view toward midtown.Stiffening trusses, bracing, and Lower Manhattan.The suspension cables rise from the mid-span low point to the promenade deck.The suspension cables climb above the promenade to the New York Tower.Low winter sunlight accentuates the networked cables and articulated tower masonry through shadows.The New York tower remains monumental in scale despite Manhattan’s perennial growth.The gothic revival towers feature subtle detailing, from variations in rustication across courses of stone to steps in plane that compliment the monumental massing.The financial district, now dotted with slender supertall residential buildings.Frank Gehry’s residential supertall, 8 Spruce, reflects sunlight across its rippled façade.The Manhattan Municipal Building presents a broad mass to the Brooklyn Bridge alignment (left), as the United States Courthouse presents a more slender tower to the right.The Woolworth Building rises above city hall park.Low sunlight highlights the Gothic detailing of the 1913 Woolworth Building, once the world’s tallest building.One World Trade Center rises above an apparent new base, the performing arts center.The sculptural WTC transit hub frames the prismatic performing arts center.The oculus.World Trade Center transit center and mall atrium.The oculus.The exterior of the WTC performing arts center is nearly complete.Memorial plaza trees and the marble façade of the performing arts center.One World Trade Center.3 WTC and 4 WTC.One World Trade Center.The incomplete 125 Greenwich St. reads as a part of the World Trade Center complex of towers, which could continue to be the case until 5 WTC is eventually developed south of the plaza. 3 WTC and 4 WTCView across the Hudson River to Jersey City from Battery Park City.Battery Park CityA panoramic view of Lower Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge’s Brooklyn Tower during construction, on display at the Skyscraper Museum, highlights the bridge’s pivotal role in connecting what were then separate cities and accelerating the growth of Manhattan.A view from Battery Park down the Hudson River Greenway to One WTC.
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