We found two classics in one on this Forgotten NY tour in 2019 in the Gowanus Canal region in Brooklyn. In the foreground is a dayburning Type B Henry Bacon park lamp, which is found in NYC parks and side streets by the thousands. This one, though, still has a 1950s “birdcage” lamp fixture that made it hard for vandals to break the lightbulb. The city moved away from this model in the 1970s and 1980s with a tempered covering that is not as easy to shatter.
In the rear is the Carroll Street Bridge over Gowanus Canal, which sports a design that is nearly unique. There are only 4 retractile bridges left in the country and NYC has two of them (the other is the Borden Avenue Bridge in Long Island City). Retractile bridges are connected by wires to rollers set perpendicularly to the span; when the bridge opens it rolls on wheels set on steel railings, somewhat like a trolley.
The bridge preserves a couple of archaisms. The bridge was first opened in 1889; and sports a clever recreation of an original sign referring to the “drivers” of horses. The bridge is 165 feet in length and is about 35 feet wide.
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10/13/22