The Williamsburg Bridge was completed in 1903, making it the second of three bridges to connect Brooklyn to our neighbors in Manhattan. Make no mistake, this middle sister is no Jan Brady. At completion, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world and quickly became a vital artery for movement between the boroughs. The bridge was one of the last to be designed to accommodate horse and carriage traffic and originally included four trolley tracks. Today you’ll find the J, M and Z trains crossing the bridge along with a daily average of over 104,700 vehicles (as of 2018). I also like to think of the people not often crossing the bridge, but living in its shadow. Like these children playing basketball on Kent Avenue, the bridge has served as a backdrop for millions of lives, standing silently in photographs and memories.
Interested in seeing more photos from CBH’s collections? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images, or the digital collections portal of Brooklyn Public Library. We look forward to inviting you to CBH in the future to research in our entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections. In the meantime, please visit our resources page to search our collections. Questions? Our reference staff is available to help with your research! You can reach us at cbhreference@bklynlibrary.org.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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