Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge - Not a walk its a Journey

(Brooklyn Bridge Walk, NYC) – If we permit ourselves to shun all cynicism for a moment, we can realize that New York City really is a wonderful and magical metropolis. Now, I am not referring to all the museums and Broadway shows and Times Square and other tourist attractions. Rather, to the potent history that is seeped into every stone and haunts every street corner. A history that borders on the mythic, especially, when you stop to think about all that New York has witnessed.

From the reign of Boss Tweed, in the middle of the 19th century, to the rise of the Beats in the 1940s; from the Harlem Renaissance, in the 1920s and 30s, to the Stonewall riots, on June 28, 1969, and much more. This is the city of Walt Whitman, E.B. White, Langston Hughes, and Norman Mailer. The city of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and the song “New York, New York;” of Walter Hill’s “The Warriors” and Woody Allen’s “Manhattan.”

So when you walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, you are not merely walking, you are traveling on a journey. There is something mystical about seeing Manhattan shift into Brooklyn.

You walk on the wooden walkway and stare at the east river and then turn your head and view the buildings and understand the term urban beauty. You catch glimpses of greenery, like oases in deserts of metal and brick. You hear snatches of conversation from other travelers, as they pass you by. You look at the various graffiti and wryly consider the march of modernity. Of course, you could always just walk across the bridge and continue on with your day, but where is the adventure in that?

It is not a quick crossing; you sense the passage of time with every step. The length of the journey encourages you to savor every sight you see and every sound you hear. It urges you to imagine the past galloping across in one direction and the future zooming across in the other. The more you walk, the more it feels that the bridge is its own separate world. It feels less and less like a link connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn and more like an island that is only connected to itself.

It should be obvious by now, that journeying across the Brooklyn Bridge is not really about getting to and from Brooklyn. For that you have the subway or simply walking across the bridge without appreciating it. However, when you really travel across the bridge; the direction is meaningless. You get to the end or to the beginning, and you smile a little smile to yourself, because you’ve just crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. All your possibilities now seem that much richer.

Check Brooklyn Bridge Pictures:

Brooklyn Bridge Sign