BROOKLYN BRIDGE

An iconic New York landmark and a must-see. Locals will even advise you to cross the bridge twice for the best photos, once during the day from Manhattan to Brooklyn, then a second time at night in the other direction to enjoy the incredible view of lower Manhattan. It's a real eye-opener when the buildings are illuminated...

Inaugurated in 1883 after 16 years of painstaking effort and 1,825 m long (it was, for a time, the longest suspension bridge in the world), didn't it represent the American dream, the heroic gateway to New York? Magical is this long bridge, stretched like a cathedral of ropes, an initiatory passage linking two islands. The 20-30 minute crossing at 83 m above the East River, with a breathtaking view of the Manhattan skyline, is a unique experience! If you leave Brooklyn in the evening - from Borough Hall (lines 2, 3, 4 and 5) and Clark Street (lines 2 and 3) stations - start with a stroll along the waterfront in Brooklyn Heights before crossing the bridge. The view is beautiful and the old buildings will almost make you forget you're in New York. Since September 2021, bicycles have had their own lane to cross the bridge safely (previously, accidents involving pedestrians encroaching on the bike path were frequent). 600 workers were employed on the site, which cost $15 million (equivalent to $3.5 billion today). A dozen workers died during construction, as did architect John A. Roebling. On June 28, 1869, while working on the wharf under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boat tied up and crushed one of his toes. The American engineer died of tetanus less than a month later, only a few months after the work had begun. His son, Washington A. Roebling took over, and it was Roebling's wife, Emily, who completed the work, even though she had no engineering training. Like many of the workers on the site, Washington had been paralyzed by a decompression accident. The decompression phenomenon, misunderstood at the time, originated in the foundations of the bridge's pillars. These foundations are 35 meters below ocean level, and required the use of hyperbaric chambers. Workers were thus exposed for hours on end to a pressure higher than atmospheric pressure, and climbed back up to water level without any precautions or decompression stops, causing nitrogen and helium bubbles to form in their blood. As this scientific phenomenon was still unexplained at the time, it is impossible to put a figure on the number of workers who died from this "caisson disease". Another surprising anecdote: in 2006, New York City announced that an air-raid shelter had been discovered by workers on one of the bridge's pillars, without revealing its exact location. It was to be used in case the Cuban missile crisis got out of hand. Inside the shelter were newspapers dating from the late 1950s and early 1960s, hundreds of bottles of water, cookies and blankets, and a sign at the entrance reading For use, after enemy attack.