Site Visit: Harlem River Drive
Triborough Bridge. Image: Rodney McCay Morgan. 1941.
We took the train to Washington Heights on Saturday, and since we didn’t feel like spending two hours getting back, we took a car instead. Going down the Harlem River Drive to the FDR very late at night, as I have done many times now, I looked out the window at the widest stretch of river to see the Triborough—now RFK—Bridge hovering in the distance on its way to Queens. While that particular sight, all light and water on a cloudless night with a bright moon, had struck me before, it had always seemed like just another arrow in New York’s quiver of awe, the particular “hey that’s nice” moment on that stretch of the FDR, just before the tunnel under Bellevue and just after the Harlem Lift Bridge. But now, seeing it live and in person, Caro’s description popped into my head: “the towers of the Triborough Bridge, marching like the facades of twin cathedrals across the East River.” And thinking that, the bridge suddenly looked different. It no longer looked inevitable or neccessary, something as defining of New York’s shape as the countours of Brooklyn’s shoreline, but as almost a folly—albeit a beautiful one. This is not usually how one would think of the Triborough, at least if you’ve driven on it. From street level, it’s a mess, crumbling and crowded and dirty. But here, quieter and more lonely, the warning lights could shine through. Time had allowed it to become anonymous, to shed its history, its personality, and the Nietzschean facts of its creation to become simply part of the road, or part of the landscape. Forgetting this sort of thing is why we protest so strongly when someone wants to change New York. But New York is always changing, after all, and in this particular spot one could rewind 60 years and see a very, very different picture. But those improvements are chosen, too. There are always other options.
2 years ago | Tags: site visit manhattan triborough bridge expressway
