By John B. Manbeck
a Brooklyn historian
Special to the Brooklyn Eagle

“Buying� the Brooklyn Bridge has been a joke since 1883. According to David McCullough, author of The Great Bridge, the story circulated when Brooklyn con men tried to cheat näive rubes from the farms after the bridge opened. From the streets, the apocryphal line graduated to the vaudeville stage and then to the voice of Brooklynite Mae West in early movies.

Over the past several months, I have been faced with the problem of “selling� the bridge, in the form of a book, Historic Photos of the Brooklyn Bridge (Nashville, TN: Turner Publishing, 2009). Production of this new book started with about 250 copies of prints the publisher mailed to me with instructions to complete captions, an introduction and five divisional sections within the month. With the assistance of McCullough’s book, I met the deadline.

The story of the Roeblings’ struggle to build the Brooklyn Bridge is riveting, with elements of suspense, mystery and both heroes and heroines as well as villains. Since this is a picture book, we had to rely on stock photos of the Roeblings, their past accomplishments (bridges and canals) and their personal lives. For the construction of the bridge, drawings from contemporary magazines (Frank Leslie’s, Harper’s, Police Gazette) supplied graphics where photographs were scarce or non-existent.

After the completion of the bridge, a surfeit of photographs suddenly appeared in city, state and national archives. At that point, I needed to restrict the collection to prints directly related to the bridge. Surprising was the variety of transportation crossing the first East River bridge, from carts and wagons through cable cars, steam engines, trolley cars and automobiles. Pictures were taken from the bridge towers, from the Woolworth Building, from the top of The New York World building (on Park Row, Manhattan) as well as from the river and both shores.

Scenes on the bridge showed pedestrians, vehicles and workers. Most fascinating were the transportation terminals on both ends of the bridge: the buildings expanded continually as the need grew for additional transportation and the bridge’s popularity increased. A popular song, The Brooklyn Bridge Crush, expounded on the 19th century rush hour experience.

Finally, both the Turner editors and I were impressed by the beauty of the structure and how photographers and other artists captured these images over the years. At varied times of the day and evening, the bridge blossomed into a beautiful and imposing creation. Most impressive were the photographs of evening hours when vehicle lights speckled the bridge roadway and later when the necklace of lights festooned the cables.

Then I was faced with promoting the book. To date, I have received a positive review from Denis Hamill of the New York Daily News and nice reactions from Sam Roberts of The New York Times, Pete Hamill and from David McCullough himself.

BookCourt on Court Street and Vox Pop on Cortelyou Road asked me to give book talks as well as St. Francis College. Vox Pop is a funky, hip storefront in Flatbush that attracts young neighbors with food, drinks, music, books and tables for laptops. At the newly expanded BookCourt, I became the opening act for Jonathan Lethem who appeared the next night and a coda for E.L. Doctorow who had preceded me. In January, I will present a PowerPoint presentation at the Brooklyn Collection of Brooklyn Public Library’s Grand Army Plaza Central Building.

Barnes & Noble on Court Street no longer has author events but they have a good supply of the books on their shelves. However, the Park Slope store still features occasional speakers.

As a long-standing member of the Speakers program of the New York Council for the Humanities, I often speak to communities about Brooklyn history. The Council is affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities and is one of 56 state and territorial humanities councils nationwide.

All in all, the experience of producing my seventh book has been exciting and rewarding in being able to document a wonderful tribute to Brooklyn and enhance the history of both the borough and the bridge.

© 2009 John B. Manbeck manbeck@brooklyneagle.net

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