New York City’s Other Famous Bridge: The Queensboro Bridge

The official name is Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge which joins Manhattan to Queens. But it is also known to New Yorkers as simply the Queensboro Bridge or the 59th Street Bridge; because of its location. You have seen it in practically any movie featuring New York City, from the 1923 Paramount Pictures’ No Man of Her Own starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard to 2012 Batman series The Dark Night Rises. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famed novel The Great Gatsby Nick Carraway; who narrates the story tells us “the city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” Indeed these words should be the ones on the minds of all those travelers arriving in Manhattan in a taxi or in any other car from New York City’s JFK or LaGaurdia airports.
The building of the Queensboro Bridge was a long process. It was in 1838 that the City officials got the idea of a bridge linking the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. However, they had to wait for almost three decades before a private company accepted to back the financing of the project and its construction. But 20 years later that company itself went bankrupt; making the project a failed one for a while. Finally in 1903 successful plans were implemented by the City’s Department of the Bridges headed by the bridge engineers and architects Gustav Lindenthal and Henry Hornbostel. The bridge was finally opened to the public on March 30, 1909 at a total cost of $18 million dollars and 50 lives of the men building it. To maintain the Queensboro Bridge over $300 million was spent on major renovations between 1987 and 2012.
Next time you are on the Queenboro Bridge, crossing the East River, look at this amazing structure and remember all those who made it possible with their hard work, money or lives and sing along with Simon and Garfunkel; the 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy): 

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Hello lamppost,
What cha knowing?
I've come to watch your flowers growing.
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' groovy.

Got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy