St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1883-04-20
Crossing Brooklyn Bridge.


Broadway Lounger in New York Tribune
! | crossed over the Brooklyn bridge
for the first time on Tuesday last it i,
considerably more than one mile
long, from the top of the hill where the
station is being built in Brooklyn, tO
Chatham street. The large station in
| Brooklyn is to be used by the steam
drum cars for waiting-rOoms, etc, and
a smaller building of that kind is being
| framed at the New York end. | am
afraid that foot passengers are not GO
ing to have the most perfect view OF
the river if they pass through the mid
die of the bridge, which | understand
to he their avenue, leaving the sides to
vehicles. The cars, | understand, are
to run on the second floor of the bridge.
| was admitted at Il gate, and put on
an asphaltum walk in the middle of the
Brooklyn approach, along which
went for thousand feet or more, and
then climbed down a ladder, or crude
steps, to the northern flooring, in
which Il crack occurred here and there.
showing the frightful chasm below, one
glimpse of which was enough to make
ii man finch. The flooring on this
side was of planks, but the parapets
being up there was no danger.
When | reached the east tower, the
magnificent character of the arch there
seemed to show more wonderfully than
from the surface of the river below. 1t
is Il fact that on the top of each of the
towers two houses can he built, of
20 feet front and 1913 feet depth. Any
man who owns Il house and lot of the
full depth in New York can look ont of
his back window on his yard and his
neighborS, and consider that both of
them do not cover as much space, by
another half building lot, as the top of
these bridge towers. The East river
assumes a beauty of color and extent
from the bridge that one could hardly
imagine ; nearly the whole river, from
Governors island to Blackwell'S island
lies under the eve, and it seems to be
the principal thing in the New York
landscape and those buildings which
border it, especially up toward Will
liamSburg. rise enormously from their
great bulk, IN general, sugar retineIieS.
New Ork itself seems, from the Brook
lyn end of the bridge, like IA town on II
hill which rises to a certain profile or
parapet, and beyond that is smoke and
vagueness. The four great cables,
that droop as modestly from their tow
ers as four whitewashed Bologna sau-
Sagcs, do not attract much remark,
since the rushing objects beneath, the
long line of barges, the white sails of
coasters, many sorts of steamboats, and
lighters, all wonderfully exposed to
notice, since their decks and upper
works are, for the first time, fully visi-
BILE to every spectator, turn the eye to
other things. None of Roebling's
bridges seems lighter than this, the i'm
posing nature of the towers and the
breadth of the bridge making one al
most forget that it is the cables which
are doing the work. The bridge is as
solid as Il turnpike road in the middle
of the country it neither rattles nol
trembles, and however nervous one is
stepping over it at first, he soon feels
secure and feasts his eyes on the ever
opening panoramas. Though | crossed
in a rather raw March day, | hardly
observed the wind. The bridge was
full of carpenters, painters, bolt-driv-
ers, and | understand that the rolling
stock for the cable railroad is finished