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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Fourteen: Expressing the meaning of buildings and structures > The Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, 2006
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08-AUG-2006

The Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, 2006

It was a daunting challenge to make a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the most famous structures in the world, in a way that I had not seen before. The idea came to me as I looked up at its signature gothic arches from a vantage point along the East River shore. Most images of this bridge, which opened in 1883 as the largest suspension bridge in the world, feature those double arches because they give it its unique identity. I decided to abstract the bridge by eliminating its famous arches and feature instead its elegant web of supporting cables. To do this, I changed my vantage point, climbing to an observation deck placed at right angles to the bridge at the nearby South Street Seaport. This position offers a side view of one of the two towers that supports the bridge. The arches vanish, and the cables take precedence. The flag echoes the diagonal slope of the cable supports, and the tiny figures on the bridge add scale incongruity. I waited for the cumulus clouds in the background to arrange themselves so that there was a salutatory puff on either side of the tower.

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Phil Douglis22-Aug-2006 23:52
You are on the mark, Jenene -- New York will forever be associated with the events of 9/11. Amazingly, this most international of our cities has since become our most American. The flag flies now from nearly every public structure. Showing the colors is a symbolic act of civic pride, as well as New York's rebuke to those who incinerated thousands of innocents in this city just about five years ago. The cables supporting this bridge are symbolic in their own way -- each strand is, as you say, resilient -- bending with the storm, but never failing to keep the bridge aloft. A powerful metaphor for a city -- and nation -- at war with an ephemeral web of murderers.
JSWaters22-Aug-2006 19:58
The cables can certainly be seen as wings that embrace a people. I'm seeing them more as the symbolic representation of resilient Americans, be they immigrant or not; a support structure without which, the bridge, would collapse. It's difficult these days to separate New York and the recent events of 9/11 when interpreting expressive images, isn't it?
Jenene
Phil Douglis18-Aug-2006 07:14
Your wild thought is very appropriate, Ai Li. A troubled nation often seeks strength from its past, and the mighty Brooklyn Bridge is one of the greatest accomplishments in American engineering. It does indeed embrace those who make the long crossing on foot from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and here the bridge spreads its cables as giant wings, embracing those who make the trek back into time. New York is a truly international city, built, inhabited, and operated by peoples of many cultures. Yet after its wounding on 9/11/01 it has become perhaps the most fiercely American of cities -- and that fluttering flag reminds us that fact.
AL18-Aug-2006 07:01
Amazing scale. Your perspective made me think of a huge embrace by the towering flag, perhaps an symbol of the higher powers (be it politically or religiously), spreading and trying to keep its people united and safe beneath its wings. Just a wild thought of mine.
Phil Douglis13-Aug-2006 22:36
The Brooklyn Bridge not only unites the people of New York, it also helped create New York as a city, allowing people to travel back and forth between Manhattan and Brooklyn on foot, wagon, or horse for the first time. And yes, the large flag that crowns the bridge, which may well be a legacy of 9/11/01, adds a national dimension as well.
Tim May13-Aug-2006 20:50
For me, a metaphor for the diversity that makes our nation. New York is the home of so much of our immigrant past - its many strands uniting for a strong nation.
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