Bridge opened with flags and fireworks | Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge made news recently due to the mysterious appearance of two bleached American flags that were placed atop the historic span by nighttime intruders.
On May 24, 1883, flags played a major role – in broad daylight and well into the evening – when the Brooklyn Bridge opened to much hoopla. Lighting up the flags that night was a grand display of fireworks.
Called by newspapers “one of the most gigantic and difficult engineering enterprises ever undertaken,” the Brooklyn Bridge was all that and more. It’s no wonder, then, that its debut was festooned with flags from its own tip-top to the topmasts of ships sailing under it.
The Worcester Spy in Massachusetts described how the baptism of the bridge included President Chester Arthur, who walked across it accompanied by “the ringing of bells, blowing of whistles, waving flags [and] cheers of the populace.”
In New York City, the Tribune noted that “the station building at the Brooklyn end of the Bridge has been decorated lavishly with festooned flags, the coats of arms of all the States between the windows, and blue velvet hangings with gold embroidery.”
The splurge of red, white and blue on the bridge spilled over to the cities at either end of the span. The same paper reported that “all the public buildings, all the structures in the business part of the city and many private houses will be brilliant with candles, gas, lamps and Chinese lanterns. Flags innumerable were sold.”
The result of all that decoration, said a Washington, D.C., journal, was buildings “profusely decorated with flags and bunting,” giving “a holiday appearance to the scene.”
Newspapers added to the festivities by flying their own colors. “The Sun building is handsomely ornamented with flags, shields and bunting,” the D.C. paper recorded. And even more American flags flew or hung from buildings on Broadway in NYC and in Brooklyn Heights. The embellishments, noted the Washington newspaper, were “elaborate and costly.”
Flags and flowers were also used to bedeck one special home near the Brooklyn Bridge. Located at 110 Columbia Heights, it was the residence of Washington Roebling. From there, as an invalid confined to bed because of “the bends,” which he had developed by going beneath the East River, he had overseen the construction of the fantastic bridge, which had been designed by his German-born father and now was streaming with American flags.