Brooklyn Bridge a celebratory banquet at his house on the day of the bridge opening. Further festivity included the performance of a band, gunfire from ships, and a fireworks display. Since the New York and Brooklyn Bridge was the only one across the East River at that time, it was also called East River Bridge. On that first day, a total of 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed what was then the only land passage between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Emily Warren Roebling was the first to cross the bridge. The bridge's main span over the East River is 1,595 feet 6 inches
Brooklyn Bridge shots of the New York City skyline in television and film. American Modernist poet Hart Crane used the Brooklyn Bridge as a central metaphor and organizing structure for his second and most important book of poetry, "The Bridge". This book takes the form of a long poem spanning eight parts, beginning with an ode ("Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge") and ending with a transfigured vision of the bridge as the unifying symbol of America ("Atlantis"). Crane briefly lived in an apartment overlooking the bridge that, he later learned, once housed Washington Roebling. American playwright Mark Violi penned the drama "Roebling: The