A story
The bridge, from the harbor and from the air
Currier & Ives' 1892 chromolithograph gives the Brooklyn Bridge its own caption: construction began in January 1870, the span was finished in May 1883, and the estimated cost was $15,000,000. Highsmith's later aerial looks down the same roadway toward Manhattan.
A caption printed on the view
Library of Congress item 93500215 is a chromolithograph published by Currier & Ives at 115 Nassau Street. The title is the grand bird's-eye view of the Great East River suspension bridge connecting the cities of New York and Brooklyn, with the bay and the port. The Library dates it 1892 and says the caption continues: construction commenced January 1870, completed May 1883, estimated cost $15,000,000. It is a reissue, printed in color, of an 1885 print. Copyright November 5, 1892, by Currier & Ives. The sheet measures 28 by 42 7/16 inches. Reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsca-08971. The notes also carry Copyright Office number X45107, and a color film copy transparency is filed as LC-USZC4-1685. No known restrictions on publication.
The Library's summary walks the labels printed on the view itself. From the left: the Brooklyn tower, Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn, the Atlantic in the distance, the New York tower, Coney Island, the Highlands of Navesink, Governors Island, the New York Cotton Exchange, the Produce Exchange, Staten Island, the Mutual Life Insurance building, the Statue of Liberty on Bedloes Island, Trinity Church, the Equitable Life Assurance building, and the New York entrance to the bridge. Ships are on the river. Traffic is on the span. In 1892 the two cities named in the title were still separate. The bridge in the picture is nine years old.
The same span, from above
The aerial is not an 1883 photograph, whatever a short date on a catalog card might suggest. Library of Congress item 2011635010 is a color transparency by Carol M. Highsmith, dated between 1980 and 2006. The title, which the Library says the photographer provided, is an aerial view of New York with the Brooklyn Bridge, looking toward Manhattan, and the Empire State Building in the distance to the right. The medium is one transparency, 4 by 5 inches or smaller. The call number is LC-HS503-2317. Reproduction LC-DIG-highsm-16817. It was a gift and purchase from Highsmith in 2011, part of the Selects Series in her archive. No known restrictions on publication. The digital image, the record warns, was made to stand in for the film, and some details may differ. Subjects the Library lists from her keywords include the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan, and an aerial view. The stone towers in Currier's caption are still the subject. The skyline behind them is not the skyline of 1892.
The Library files the 1892 sheet as a reissue and cites it as Gale 2683. A copyright stamp sits on the lower right. The cities in the title were still two cities. Brooklyn and New York would not consolidate until later, and this print does not claim that merger. It claims a bridge: January 1870 to May 1883, an estimated fifteen million dollars, and a harbor full of named landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty on what the caption still calls Bedloes Island.
Put the two prints in order and the harbor changes around a span that does not. Currier & Ives, in 1892, still had room to name every tower, ferry, and insurance company. Highsmith, sometime between 1980 and 2006, needed only the roadway, the East River, and the Empire State beyond the Manhattan tower. The lithograph is the nineteenth-century claim, a color reissue of an 1885 print, copyrighted November 5, 1892. The aerial is the same claim, still standing, seen from a height the 1892 printmakers did not have, with the Empire State already in the distance.
