So states the back of this undated postcard, based on a photo taken from the Brooklyn side of the bridge.
It’s a smoky, busy, glorious view. There’s the municipal building on the right, the Woolworth Building in the middle, the Singer Building to the left, and East River piers now used for recreation rather than shipping.
Tags: Brooklyn Bridge postcard, City Hall Manhattan, East River at the turn of the century, East River Piers, East River postcard, Lower Manhattan commerce, Singer Building, vintage New York postcards, Woolworth Building
April 12, 2011 at 3:52 pm |
That’s the Municipal Building on the right. City Hall is not high enough to be visible.
April 12, 2011 at 3:54 pm |
Ah, that’s what I meant! I will change the text.
April 12, 2011 at 7:42 pm |
Smoky. Busy. Glorious. But mysterious.
The U.S.S. North Dakota didn’t go floating up the East River every day, and a close examination of what is presumably an earlier postcard suggests that both were made from the same photo. See the “earlier” postcard at NY Public Library’s Digital Gallery, Image ID: 836965. [Maybe you can paste a copy into the page, or make a link.]
Aside from what looks like a forerunner to the Circle Line being absent from the “earlier” card, and artistic touches in the same card that make the North Dakota appear to be under full speed, all river details seem identical. The battleship, tug boat, and smaller craft are positioned exactly as in your postcard.
So, what’s the mystery?
How did the new Equitable Building get in what is presumably the newer of the postcards? [Find it between the Singer and Bankers Trust towers, looking just a little bit too tall and wide.] The photo may have been taken in the fall of 1911, when the North Dakota was in New York. The new Equitable Building wouldn’t have appeared as it does in the postcard until early 1915.
The North Dakota returned with the Atlantic Fleet flotilla that appeared in the Hudson in May, 1915. If it sailed to the Navy Yard for some reason, and if the photo was made in 1915, it would be even more mysterious to remove the Equitable Building. After all, they’d gone to a lot of trouble to build the damn thing, why not leave it in?
Perhaps another reader knows more about such postcards. Might a building get “added” when a popular card was put into secondary editions?
April 12, 2011 at 7:48 pm |
Interesting and mysterious. Here’s the link to the earlier card:
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=1017243&imageID=836965