Nooks and Crannies

There's a lot of ways to cross the Manhattan Bridge. You can walk it, bike it, drive it - even ride over it on the back of a subway if you want, although that's certainly not recommend as a regular means of transverse.



At about the 24 second mark you can see one of the nooks and crannies of the bridge - a short abandoned tunnel that used to connect the north tracks to the uptown Broadway Express line before the completion of the Chrystie Street Connection in 1967. Out of all the bridges, the Manhattan is the one that seems to have the most of these nooks and crannies to explore. A constructed, but never used Second Avenue Subway station below its Manhattan approach. A narrow passage that lets you squeeze inside the globes that crown its Brooklyn-side tower. Perhaps the most interesting is a small nook inside the entrance colonade that houses a time capsule to be opened in 2009. And there's a few others that have either been closed off, or like the formally unused North Walkway, since opened up to the public.



Unused Second Avenue Subway tunnel - photo by Danielle Plamondon

Getting cozy inside one of the globes
Time Capsule Nook - South part of the Manhattan entrance colonade

North walkway - 2003
And out of all the bridges I've climbed, it's the most ephemeral to be on top of. There's none of the stone solidity of the Brooklyn, or the web-like heavy iron of the Hell Gate. Even being on top of the hollow sheet metal of the Williamsburg or see-through platform of the Queensboro feels stable by comparison. The top of the bridge is perhaps five and a half feet wide - narrow enough that you can lie down on the top lengthwise and touch either end with each hand. There isn't even a guardrail, unless you count the tension wires that run across the top of each tower.

The first time I climbed the Manhattan was with an Aussie friend of mine, who captured the essence of the escapade (as well as some great photos) in one of one of my favorite essays. To anyone who truly wants to understand why we do this stuff: this is required reading.