United States: New York City

Next up, and last card for today, is this black and white card from Iva who lives in Garfield, NJ

Lower Manhattan skyline with the Brooklyn Bridge spanning over the East River

If there's one thing I learned from getting postcards already, it's that black and white cards are often just as nice as very colorful ones. It gives it a kind of vintage look if you ask me. I also learned that most cards I get, spike my curiosity and make me want to find out more about what is shown and the places they come from. Maybe when my kids are older, they can learn along with me about everything this big world has to offer.

I started out looking up New York City, but I quickly realized that would keep me busy until the next century, so I narrowed it down to looking up the Brooklyn Bridge mentioned in the description.

This bridge was completed in 1883 and is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. It's 1,595.5 feet long and until 1903 it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, as well as the first steel-wire suspension bridge.

It is a multi-level bridge. The lower level is for motor vehicles, with 3 Brooklyn-bound lanes and 3 Manhattan-bound lanes. This lower level used to be for horse-drawn and trolley traffic, but as times changed, the bridge was adapted to accomodate motorized vehicles. The upper level is for bicycles and pedestrians.

In 1972 the Brooklyn Bridge was designated a National Historic Landmark, as well as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.

Let me close this post with a little "fun fact" on the bridge: one of the anchorages of the bridge sits on the property of the Osgood House, where George Washington stayed with his family for his inauguration in 1789. He stayed there from April 1798 to February 1790. Since he had his private office there as well as the public business office, it became the first seat of the executive branch of the federal government.



Pin It