The
Brooklyn Bridge ... Spans New York City's East River.

It is an awe-inspiring structure, when you stroll under its massive cables and Romanesque arches.

We walked it late
on an unseasonally chilly, windy and gray
June afternoon.

Below the pedestrian way, it was bumper-to-bumper traffic with noisy automobiles, taxis, and trucks, hurrying away from the city, after work.

To add to the chaos, traffic was snarled with two stalled vehicles, one at each on ramp to the bridge. But New York's finest quickly cleared the cars out of the way and allowed traffic to resume its mad pace.

Meanwhile, t he walkway was bustling with foot traffic - runners and walkers and bicycle riders - who didn't really want to slow down for pedestrians, who strayed into their lane.

When you glimpsed backward, you got a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline, looming behind the west end of the bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a suspension bridge that spans the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan Island. It was was the first bridge to use steel for cable.

Designed by John Augustus Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was constructed between 1869 and 1883, under the pressures of immense engineering complexities.