An Unusual Bird's-Eye View of NYC from a Rare Source

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2728

This bird's-eye view of the NYC/East Jersey area was found in a rare pamphlet produced by the old North River Bridge Company in 1937. The image--which is widely expandable and found in a pamphlet for a project entitled The Lindenthal Bridge and Terminals, Condensed Statement¹--shows the city from a considerable height with a long and oblique view, hovering north of Hoboken on the Jersey side with a view extending to all of Staten Island, which covers a distance of about 18 miles. Heading east (left) in this southerly view we see most of Manhattan, then about all of Brooklyn, highlighting at Coney Island. It is a curious and delightful view. 

 

The "Lindenthal" in the title here is the successful engineer/aesthetician Gustav Lindenthal (of Brno, 1850-1935), who today is most remembered for his wonderful Hell's Gate bridge ("longest and heaviest steel bridge in the world" according to Wiki), the structure as interesting as its name.  

An earlier (1895) plan by Lindenthal would have created a perfectly massive structure--as the blog Untapped Cities points out, the 6,000 foot long bridge would have been twice as long as the GW Bridge and its towers would have been the tallest structures in the world at 825'. The bridge would have spanned the Hudson at about Hoboken across to 57th Street, and no doubt would have been monumental if not un-beautiful:

[1895 bridge image source: http://untappedcities.com/2013/07/25/nyc-that-never-was-hudson-river-bridge-dwarf-woolworth-building/]

Notes:

This bird's-eye view of the NYC/East Jersey area was found in a rare pamphlet produced by the old North River Bridge Company in 1937. The image--which is widely expandable and found in a pamphlet for a project entitled The Lindenthal Bridge and Terminals, Condensed Statement¹--shows the city from a considerable height with a long and oblique view, hovering north of Hoboken on the Jersey side with a view extending to all of Staten Island, which covers a distance of about 18 miles. Heading east (left) in this southerly view we see most of Manhattan, then about all of Brooklyn, highlighting at Coney Island. It is a curious and delightful view. 

 

The "Lindenthal" in the title here is the successful engineer/aesthetician Gustav Lindenthal (of Brno, 1850-1935), who today is most remembered for his wonderful Hell's Gate bridge ("longest and heaviest steel bridge in the world" according to Wiki), the structure as interesting as its name.  

An earlier (1895) plan by Lindenthal would have created a perfectly massive structure--as the blog Untapped Cities points out, the 6,000 foot long bridge would have been twice as long as the GW Bridge and its towers would have been the tallest structures in the world at 825'. The bridge would have spanned the Hudson at about Hoboken across to 57th Street, and no doubt would have been monumental if not un-beautiful:

[1895 bridge image source: http://untappedcities.com/2013/07/25/nyc-that-never-was-hudson-river-bridge-dwarf-woolworth-building/]

Notes:

1.  The Lindenthal Bridge and Terminals, Condensed Statement. The North River Bridge Company, 200 Madison Avenue, NYC,  April 1937.  280x215mm, 10pp, plus   3 plates, including 2 folding. These include a (1) general full-page elevation of the bridge; (2) a folding 280x420mm folding bird's-eye view from north of Hoboken and the Bronx south to Jamaica Bay, Coney Island, and (all of) Staten Island; and (3) a folding 280x420mm map of river crossings on the Hudson and East Rivers, population density, and a map of how many come into the city and from where.  Provenance: Martin J. McNamara (of Washington DC, with his ownership stamp), then to the White House (with that stamp on the foot of the first plate), and then off to the Library of Congress. For some reason there are NO copies located in WorldCat/OCLC, which frankly surprised me. 

The profile of the 1937 bridge was quite elegant:

And evidently the White House didn't think enough of the plan to keep the pamphlet longer than six months:

And evidently the White House didn't think enough of the plan to keep the pamphlet longer than six months: