Re-Unveiling Of The Brooklyn Bridge In 1945

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Dear Reader, you must know by now that I love history. When I found this stock photograph of the re- unveiling of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1945, I was thrilled.
Labeled :
"This is a general view of the crowd in the Manhattan Street Plaza, gathered to witness the re-unveiling of the Brooklyn Bridge today in connection with the current Victory Bond Campaign. Mayor La Guardia officiates as Victory Bond Auctioneer."
I just needed to know more about the event. Below are some pretty great details on the day and a wonderful tidbit about Walt Whitman and his non-existent Brooklyn Bridge poem.

In 1944, New York decided to remove the railroad tracks that ran across the bridge and to raze the transport terminals that stood at either end. The following year, the bridge was reopened to pedestrians and to automobile traffic at a grand ceremony. As Stanley Hyman subsequently reported, "the sponsors of the bridge's 'unveiling' in 1945 were so certain Whitman must have written something about [the] Brooklyn Bridge that they recklessly announced that a poem by him would be read at the ceremony. They were unable to produce." The sponsors, however, upheld their promise. Sandwiched between the address of Manhattan Borough President Edgar Nathan, Jr. and New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia was a public reading of Whitman's "historic verse," "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Written thirteen years before construction began- and a full twenty-seven years before the bridge opened- "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" makes no reference to a bridge between New York and Brooklyn, and neither does it envision one. Nevertheless, public recitals of this "historic verse" have become a standard commemorative practice. The poem enjoyed public readings at the bridge's rededication in 1954, at the span's seventy-fifth anniversary, and again at the centennial in 1983.

As the organizers of the 1945 re-unveiling ceremony realized, Whitman wrote no poetry that celebrated the Brooklyn Bridge. In fact, he barely wrote about the bridge at all. The span appears only twice in his voluminous literary output, and on both occasions the reference is fleeting.

From: The Brooklyn Bridge: A Cultural History, By Richard Haw
to read more, click here

[Brooklyn Bridge]