Build a Bridge!

By ShellMay 22, 2018

New York City is home to over 2,000 bridges and tunnels.

Many of the city’s major bridges and tunnels have broken or set records. Opened in 1927, the Holland Tunnel was the world’s first mechanically ventilated underwater vehicular tunnel. The Brooklyn Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, George Washington Bridge, and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge were the world’s longest suspension bridges when opened in 1883, 1903, 1931, and 1964 respectively.

We’ve been through a few of the tunnels so far and crossed the Queensboro Bridge on our way in from the airport, but today was all about the Brooklyn Bridge.

ML suggested that we catch the subway across to Brooklyn and walk back over to Manhattan… this could have something to do with the 11.6kms we walked yesterday (although ML actually did way more because her steps are smaller so she has to take more… and she said that her legs felt great this morning after donning some DoTerra Magic oil – Love the Ice Blue!), but in the end, it turned out to be a great idea…

So we donned our matching shoes and rode the subway to Dumbo, Brooklyn.

We took a left out of the subway and started walking towards the bridge.

We passed some lovely looking streets before realising that we were walking the wrong way…

So we back tracked a couple of blocks and found ourselves on some lovely tree lined streets.

I’m not sure what it is… the window decorations or the fire escapes, but I just love these buildings… I mean, they’re square and bland with no balconies… so I don’t understand it, but I’m still drawn to them.

It helps if you’ve got a bit of ivy growing on the side as well.

We think that this little house was possibly an old fire station house.

If I had to live in Brooklyn Heights, I’d like to live on this street.

This one has even got my name on it!

And look at this house with the little garden to the side and the garage.

We made it to the water and was to take in the view…

Then we noticed these roof top terrace apartments – check out their view!!! I live there now.

Because we’re high on a hill, we had to make our way down to the water by way of this gorgeous walkway.

Seriously, I can’t decide which house I want to live in!

Probably not one of these though – you could see straight in through the windows.

But they did have a lovely view of the lady…

At the end of the suspended walkway there is a fabulous garden and park with winding paths like this one.

And open spaces like this one…

That all lead back to under the bridge.

That’s the Manhattan Bridge in the background.

You can catch the ferry from this point or there is the famous? Brooklyn Ice-cream Factory…. People were literally lining up out the door in teh sun to buy an icecream and then sit in this space in the sun to eat it.

I’m not sure why the Brooklyn Bridge is so iconic, I mean there are prettier bridges in the world, but people just love this one.

And as a result… here we are!

They’ve tried to get the love lock thing going here like they did in Paris, but it hasn’t really caught on…

Did you know that in 1776 Britain tried to attack, invade and take over New York? You learn something new every day. If we’ve learned anything from the royal wedding and Meghan’s veil, it’s that the Commonwealth has 53 countries under its belt and I think that’s enough for any Kingdom.

Then we headed to the entry of the bridge to make our own crossing…

People here LERVE to line up for things! This line is for a burger joint… but it doesn’t matter what it’s for – they just love to form a line.

Then with a little help from Google Maps and our witts, we made it to the bridge!

This lady is obviously sick of Brooklyn and she’s moving to the big smoke… either that or she works in Manhattan and just popped home for lunch.

The top of the bridge… These are obviously here because people keep trying to climb to the top.

There were a number of people popping on graduation garments… it must be a thing.

It jut got prettier the further we crossed…

It’s crazy that more people aren’t killed here on this bridge by both stupidity and cyclists.
Can you see the white line down the middle? The left side is for walkers – going in both directions and the right hand side is for bikes – going in both directions – quite fast… so when you have people / families / walkers with headphones on all walking slowly on the right hand side – probably thinking “this is so much better on this side where there are not many people walking’ and never once wondering why… I mean, fair enough, the lanes aren’t clearly marked, so you can’t really blame them…

And this is why… stopping to pose for gratuitous selfie shots of yourself in front of or on top of famous monuments… it’s a thing.

And we joined the throng of people who stopped right in the way of everybody else to take a photo. If you can’t beat ’em…

This photo was a mistake, but turned out kinda cool…. it marks the midway mark of our pilgrimage.

Which was cool and weird at the same time… cause ML is actually the new Geisha Lady in my life.. she’s taken over from Me Jenny’s title of Geisha Nana because she insists on walking 4-10 steps behind me at all times… even if I slow down. I know I walk fast and tend to take a naturally longer stride… so this my usual view of ML… I’m thinking of installing shoulder mirrors so I can keep an eye on her.

But at this point when our shoes aligned…. I was able to get this photo of us side by side.

See, it’s rare! I had been waiting in this spot for a good minute so ML could catch up to me.

We got to the other side and felt like we’d achieved our objective for the day – with a bonus walk through Brooklyn Heights.

High five us!

When we got home it was decided that we could have 5s’ies up on the roof, so we waited until a bit later than 5pm because the sun was still pretty high in the sky, then we took up a beverage and some chip and dip up and took it all in.

That’s Central Park behind us.