New York City became a great city because of its wonderful harbor; the Hudson River allowed shipping to the north and west, and the deep water at the foot of Manhattan Island allowed ships to dock easily. But as the city expanded, the water surrounding Manhattan became an obstacle to further development; the only way to cross between the island and Brooklyn or New Jersey was on small, slow ferryboats.
The first bridge to connect Manhattan with the mainland was built back in 1693, when Frederick Philipse built the King’s Bridge over the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. (The location was at today’s 230th Street and Kingsbridge Avenue; Kingsbridge Avenue was named after the bridge, and the area itself came to be known as Kingsbridge.)
Later, in the 1840s, the High Bridge was built between Manhattan and the Bronx at 174th Street as part of the Croton Aqueduct, which supplied water to the city. This bridge, which still stands, was the first of the city’s great bridges, and when it was built it was not only the longest bridge in the country but it was also the biggest single construction project ever undertaken in the United States.
By the 1880s, New York was the largest city in the United States and Brooklyn was second (they weren’t combined into one city until 1899), and movement between the two overloaded the East River with ferry traffic. The Brooklyn Bridge, built to relieve this congestion, was the first of four suspension bridges in New York that have each, at various times, been the world’s longest bridge. Today there are many bridges throughout the world that are longer than New York’s, but they all owe a debt of gratitude to New York and the Brooklyn Bridge, which pioneered the fundamental techniques for building modern suspension bridges.
