There should never be a (first) visit to New York City without a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, in my opinion anyway. So when my cousin Annick and her family, who were visiting from France, and I traveled to New York together this past week, the first thing we did was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn.
While approaching the bridge from the Brooklyn side offers you the impressive view of the Manhattan skyline, I’m especially fond of the experience of leaving the hustle, bustle and closed-in feeling of the Financial District of Manhattan, then truly appreciating the open space of water below and sky above on the bridge and, last but not least, being welcomed by Brooklyn, which I still consider my home after all the years away. And every single time I arrive at the other side of the East River, I remember that time during the Blackout of 2002 when Scott, Nils and I walked home across the bridge with thousands of other people and then borough president Marky Markowitz stood there in the heat, waving his arms and yelling “Welcome home to Brooklyn!”
The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge, which opened in 1883, when it was the longest suspension bridge, spanning 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m). Today it is a National Historic Landmark.
The opening and closing shots were filmed from Brooklyn Bridge Park, where you will find my favorite local ice cream at The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. Getting a scoop from there is the perfect reward after crossing over the East River in the summer. During colder times, I highly recommend getting a hot chocolate from Jacques Torres over in DUMBO, which offers the best hot chocolate in town (with The Chocolate Room in Park Slope being a close rival).
Of course, I also needed to include in this video the experience of people on bikes yelling at tourists walking in the bike lane. It’s all part of the Brooklyn Bridge ritual.
To check out what this is like from a cyclist’s perspective, please check out these previous In A Brooklyn Minute videos:
Riding across the Brooklyn Bridge – In A Brooklyn Minute (Week 84)
Alternative Version of: Brooklyn Bridge Ride – In A Brooklyn Minute (Week 84)
This week’s video features a song with lyrics, which I usually avoid. Not just because it’s hard to find the right lyrics to match the mood or message of the video but also it’s much harder to edit to since singers don’t necessarily start lines on the 1 or 3 beat, which I like to cut to. But in this case, the song “Bonjour, Mon Amie” by Josh Woodward fit almost perfectly… not only because Annick, Sébastien, Cleo and Liam visited from France and they are so dear to me but also because I was overflowing with love for the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn and New York City. This song, as well as hundreds of Josh’s other songs, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 US License. Merci beaucoup, Josh!
You can look at more photos from this video shoot on my personal blog: Photos of the Brooklyn Bridge
