Established in the 1600s, New York City is now the largest city in the United States, and some may argue, the best! The city’s history is vast and intriguing and there is something new to learn every day. One of the more interesting parts of any city’s history is its transportation system. An article written by Robert Klara in Brooklyn magazine offers us a glimpse into that history and also exposes some details of what gets lost as cities expand and change over time.
Starting as just a single line in 1904, the MTA’s subway system is a major source of transportation for many New Yorkers and has expanded to include 472 stations along 665 miles of track. As the subway was developed, it was noted by the chief engineer William Barclay Parsons, that the stations needed to be elegant and have aesthetic appeal. Architectural firm Heins & LaFarge dressed the stations so people on their daily commute were exposed to something artistic. The Brooklyn Bridge station for example showcased a unique plaque. Boasting bald eagles high on its walls, displaying the initials “BB,” creating a historic monogram.
It’s something of a mystery, however, why Heins & LaFarge chose eagles for the Brooklyn Bridge stop. After all, the decorative plaques at other stations usually commemorated something of local significance: the beavers at Astor Place to signify the Astor family’s fur trade, for example, or the ship Santa Maria rendered in faience at Columbus Circle.
Historian and CALA faculty, John Tauranac has a theory. When the subway was on the drawing board, the ink had barely dried on the 1898 consolidation of New York’s boroughs into one city. Tauranac ventures that the Brooklyn Bridge eagles symbolized a kind of manifest destiny: The great cities of New York and Brooklyn uniting amid a surfeit of national pride.
“When you think of the notion that the United States was going to extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific—and with the advent of railroads it became a feasible thing to travel from one side of the continent to the other—I think that using the eagle at the Brooklyn Bridge station was symbolic of that kind of unification,” he says.
However, since 1959, the Brooklyn Bridge eagles have been shut off from the public’s view, after a 1959 renovation, and to this day they are hidden behind a wall of bricks on a long since abandoned platform.
For anyone interested in our city’s history CALA’s upcoming course, Changing City: From Greenwich Village to Grand Central, taught by John Tauranac, is a good match. Students will learn about many New York City neighborhoods and see how they have changed, and continue to change over time. The course starts on April 6, 2022