As you can see from my third and last black-and-white mini-series on the Brooklyn Bridge, I have shifted completely to an architectural view of the structure. The first picture in the series nearly balanced the foreground people with the background architecture. For yesterday’s post, I shifted the emphasis to the bridge’s architecture while retaining the people for context. Today, it’s all about the architectural details.

While the stone towers offer a unique, grounded design to the bridge, it’s the gentle but complex cabling that really entices. In this perspective, I included enough of the stonework to give context, capturing the Gothic-like arches, but I concentrated on the cables. The flag in the center is a nice detail wedged between two oval-shaped structures that look impressive but puzzled me. Were they decorative or functional?

Research revealed they are purely functional and are called “suicide gates on the cables.” It’s a rather morbid name for such a grand architectural flourish. They were not part of the original design but were added later as safety barriers to prevent people from climbing onto the bridge’s cables.

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