BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1333, 24 July 1883, Page 4

BROOKLYN BRIDGE.

ago a cable message spoke ■HKt panic having occurred on bridge through a false reit was giving way. This also claim the title of a ■■of the world. The New York of the Sydney Morning writing on April 28th, thus ■if it:— nearly 11 years of patient great suspension bridge to connect the two cities of and Brooklyn will be g|H to the public on the 24th of Three years ago the towers which form its were completed, and took as the great landmarks of They may be discerned with the deck of an incoming 2O miies from land, and from New Jersey 35 miles in the the writer, aided only an field glass, has clearly made outlines. The work of subthe cables and the iron beams the roadway for passengers rest, has kept several of men constantly busy since, and the people on the have watched its progress ceaseless interest. The bridge above the level of the water huge cables seem but slender ■■i, while the lighter stays and shrink into gossamer threads, in symmetrical order. Scarcely now’ remains to be done. !■ painters aro putting on the last ■ of paint ; poets are being erecled electric lights, the wires for stand in coils ready for sus- ; the railroad tracks are allaid, and the machinery for the cars by endless cables is placed in position. The bridge have decided, after an anidiscussion of two days’ dura- ■ , that three cents shall be the fare for passage on the and would have also imposed a of one cent upon every foot but that the Legislature ■imptly came to our rescue, and Hisea an Act prohibiting the levying ■ such a tax, and making the bridge ever free for pedestrians. This is ■doubtedly a wise measure, hastily ■ it was enacted, for henceforth a ■omenade on the bridge will be one ■ the great sights of the city, and ■deed for that matter of the world. ■>e views of Paris at night from the ■ell known coigns of vantage ■id even of London from St. Paul s, ■1 fall short in picturesque sugges ■veness to the scene from the bridge K the earlier hours of the night. 'he eye not only follows the stream f lights on the thoroughfares of the Wo cities, one on either hand, but eneath the East River is bright with he coloured signals of the swiftly loving ferry boats, and away seaward he hundreds of ships at anchor in he bay contribute each it s speck of reen and red flame to the picture, t week ago, in spite of exceptionally sold weather, a favored party of sight. eers paced the bridge for an hour, jheerfully running the risk of pneunonia for the sake of mastering the details of this most novel and striking of spectacles. A generation hence the view from Brooklyn Bridge will have almost as world-wide a fame as the falls of Niagara, and the vast burdens unon the ratepayers entailed by the construction of the work, will be held a cheap price for the end achieved. Estimates of the real cost of the bridge vary greatly. The trustees have accumulated a debt of 14,000,000 dollars in bonds, and upon a steadily increasing proportion of those the two cities have had to pay the current interest. More probably 20,000,000 dollars is a fair computation of the total cost, and the interest upon this sum is not after all an excessive price to pay for establishing a certain and assured communication between the two cities. Brooklyn, ■with its 700,000 people, is as much a part of New York as Southwark or Lambeth is of London.