New York City: 1901

Oh, please, may we have a picture from the same vantage point as it looks today?

I love such sights.

The thing that strikes me is that the Brooklyn Bridge dominates the landscape, not just in width but in height and massiveness. You get the feeling that the bridge is as wide as Manhattan itself. (I know that at this narrow point, it actually comes pretty close...) It seems like the most substantial thing in the city. That's not the impression you get any more now that the overall skyline is so dense and high reaching. In more recent photos (distant pans like this, at least...) the bridges are dwarfed by the skyline and almost easy to overlook as a detail at all.

Linked from kottke.org. The exchange there indicates that the bridge under construction to the right, behind the Brooklyn Bridge, is Williamsburg Bridge.

These old photographs contain so much information, don't they? Resolutions on old large-format photographs being what they are...

What's interesting in this picture when you view it full size is just how many sailing vessels there still seem to be at this date. The a fairly nice three masted schooner with white hull near the middle of the photo, a steam powered vessel with sails as a supplement behind it, and a forest of masts over by the Brooklyn Bridge.