Historian David McCullough appears in a heartfelt video Op-Ed at the New York Times site, making the case against the horrendous idea to build an 18-story condo building very close to the Brooklyn Bridge.
The proposed condo tower would stand next to the Brooklyn tower of the bridge, destroying the views of the beautiful stone structure designed by John Roebling and constructed in the 1870s. McCullough, in his distinctive voice, which history lovers know from many PBS documentaries, also notes that the site of the proposed condo tower is precisely where George Washington led his battered army in a night retreat across the East River after the Battle of Brooklyn in the Revolutionary War.
I first became fascinated with the bridge when I read McCullough's classic book The Great Bridge as a teenager. When I moved to New York City I made a point of visiting the bridge and instantly fell in love with it. It's the first place I always wanted to take visitors to New York, and in the years I lived in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn I walked across the bridge many times.
The Brooklyn Bridge is a great treasure, and let's hope that McCullough's campaign to thwart the desecration of the bridge will be successful. There are plenty of places in Brooklyn where developers can put a condo tower, and they surely don't need to ruin the beautiful sight of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Image: The Brooklyn Bridge, under construction/courtesy New York Public Library Digital Collections
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