Never Was

A 1913 or so postcard showing the Manhattan end of the Manhattan Bridge, looking east towards Brooklyn: If that looks a bit more Parisian than you remember Chinatown as being, you’re not wrong. This is a fantasy in part, and some pleasantly-misguided design optimism in part. The colonnade is real, designed by Carrère and Hastings (the architects of the New York Public Library) and still there. Here’s an early photo of it, from the center of the bridge approach off Canal Street: It’s a bit much. If you look at the postcard, you can see that vehicular traffic got the grand arch in the center of the colonnade, while the streetcars wend behind the columns to the outer portion of the bridge deck. The bridge opened in 1909, streetcars started crossing it in 1912, and the BMT subway began crossing in 1913. The trains depicted on the right side, beyond the cube trees, are not accurate in their location or elevation: the subway dives underground as soon as it’s off the bridge. The growth of…