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For Sale! Brooklyn Bridge

At about 300 feet above the East River, on a dry and clear day, you are just high enough above the water to escape the reflective heat of Manhattan's sidewalks and enjoy the cool breeze and bright sunshine that reminds you of the joy of being alive.

On the boardwalk over the Brooklyn Bridge there are views in every direction - many framed by the cables that hold the bridge in place.

You can see Manhattan from the World Trade Center at its tip, to the Empire State Building at its center, and further still in all directions. The Manhattan Bridge is on one side. The Statue of Liberty on the other.

A section of Brooklyn, known as Dumbo, is at the other end where a man with a hot dog cart waits and hopes you are hungry enough for lunch.

The Brooklyn Bridge has been hanging over the river since 1883.

It took fourteen years to build it. It has been used every day since and crews constantly maintain it to ensure its safety.

The two main towers stand on bedrock beneath the river. Seventy-eight feet deep on the Manhattan side and forty-four feet deep on the Brooklyn side. On top of those cement footings; granite towers - 1,600 feet apart - and steel cabling hold the decks in place.

The Brooklyn Bridge is such a familiar sight today that it is somewhat easy to take it for granted. But on the day it opened, it was called the "eighth wonder of the world," and more than a hundred years later, there is a reason hundreds of thousands of people visit every week.

It's a magnificent feat. To walk across it is to take a walk across time - through history. The history of engineering. The history of New York. The history of the United States.

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© Dean Pagani 2022

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© Dean Pagani 2022

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