The grand display of fireworks and illuminations: at the opening of the great suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn on the evening of May 24th, 1883 – Antique Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: The grand display of fireworks and illuminations: at the opening of the great suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn on the evening of May 24th, 1883, preserved in this antique lithograph. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
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The grand display of fireworks and illuminations: at the opening of the great suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn on the evening of May 24th, 1883
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The Brooklyn Bridge, then commonly called the East River Bridge, opened to traffic in May 1883, and this Currier & Ives chromolithograph captures the celebration held on the evening of May 24 that marked its dedication. The print's title points to the night's fireworks and illuminations rather than to the bridge's engineering, so the viewer sees a festive city more than a structure. John A. Roebling designed the span, and after his death his son Washington Roebling supervised much of its construction, which was completed after years of hardship that included a caisson disease that left him an invalid. The lithograph, issued by the firm known for popular scenes of American life, offers a vivid record of how the city presented its great new link between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
| Created / published | New York : Published by Currier & Ives, c1883. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : chromolithograph. |
| Genre | Chromolithographs Color 1880-1890. |
| Notes | Currier & Ives : a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, c1983, no. 2691 |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,686 × 1,388 px · prints to 6 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-175340 |
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