A vintage view of the new “East River Bridge”

By the time it opened in 1903, the Williamsburg Bridge had its name. The postcard, stamped 1912, must predate it—hence the East River Bridge moniker.

We must be looking toward Brooklyn; that appears to be the domed Williamsburgh Savings Bank building far off in the distance, with a couple of lonely tenements huddled by the waterfront on the Manhattan side.

The postcard carries this message, to an address in Massachusetts:

“152 South Eighth Street, Brooklyn NY—Dear Bennie, today is the first day of spring. Snowing all day here. Pa.”