The Williamsburg Bridge ca. 1905 The Williamsburg Bridge opened to the public on December 19, 1903, spanning the East River and connecting Manhattan’s Lower East Side with the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. It was designed by American Civil Engineer Leffert L. Buck and architect Henry Hornbostel who would later also collaborate on the design of the nearby Queensboro Bridge. This time period coincided with a massive population growth in New York City, prompting an ease of movement between boroughs and necessitating the need for more connections. The Williamsburg Bridge was the second permanent structure to connect Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn following the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883. Construction began in 1896 and cost the city $24.2 million in total. At the time of it’s opening, the Williamsburg Bridge was officially the longest running suspension bridge in the world, spanning a total of 7,308 feet. The structure would hold this title until 1924, when the Bear Mountain Bridge opened in upstate New York. The Williamsburg Bridge was one of the last bridges built in New York City designed for the purpose of trolley use. In the decades after it opened, railways and trolley lines accounted for most of the traffic on the bridge. To accommodate the growing frequency of automobile drivers, the trolley tracks were closed and converted into roadways in 1932.

In the 1930s, today’s East Village and Lower East Side, long the country’s most crowded and notorious slum, was being dramatically transformed. The nation’s first federally-subsidized public housing was being built. Immigration from Europe, once the neighborhood’s lifeblood, had been cut off by restrictive laws, though new laws granting citizenship to residents of Puerto Rico precipitated the beginnings of what would, in the post-WWII years, become a massive migration of residents from the island to this neighborhood. Tenements were being demolished to make way for widened streets and new subway lines running throughout the neighborhood. And a new, innovative park was being planned for this poor, immigrant neighborhood. One of the most dramatic and lasting transformations of the neighborhood took place on July 27, 1939, when the first sections of the East River Park opened with great fanfare at an event presided over by Robert Moses and Mayor La Guardia. The roughly 50-acre, 1.5 mile-long park, which stretches from 12th to Montgomery Streets, has served generations of locals. But after 80 years, it’s future is uncertain, as the City has decided to protect Lower Manhattan from rising sea levels and flooding by demolishing the current park and rebuilding it ten feet higher. East River Park was conceived by Robert Moses in the 1930s as the East River Drive (renamed the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive in 1945) was built. While Moses enjoys a reputation as a callous, car-centric destroyer of neighborhoods, he was also responsible for building tens of thousands of acres of parks and beaches in New York City and surrounding areas. East River Park was built on landfill, replacing an industrial area of warehouses and piers that largely served the coal and lumber industries. This shoreline transformation to parkland was the first of its kind in New York City, preceding Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and others by many decades. As reported by the NY Times on July 27, 1939, “The park to be opened today has tennis courts, wading pools, fields for football, baseball, field hockey, softball and soccer. There are also volley ball, basketball, handball, shuffleboard, hand tennis, paddle tennis, and horseshoe-pitching courts. A roller-skating rink will be frozen over for ice skating in winter, and an open-air dance floor will be similarly concerted in cold weather.” In the 1930s, today’s East Village and Lower East Side, long the country’s most crowded and notorious slum, was being dramatically transformed. The nation’s first federally-subsidized public housing was being built. Immigration from Europe, once the neighborhood’s lifeblood, had been cut off by restrictive laws, though new laws granting citizenship to residents of Puerto Rico precipitated the beginnings of what would, in the post-WWII years, become a massive migration of residents from the island to this neighborhood. Tenements were being demolished to make way for widened streets and new subway lines running throughout the neighborhood. And a new, innovative park was being planned for this poor, immigrant neighborhood. One of the most dramatic and lasting transformations of the neighborhood took place on July 27, 1939, when the first sections of the East River Park opened with great fanfare at an event presided over by Robert Moses and Mayor La Guardia. The roughly 50-acre, 1.5 mile-long park, which stretches from 12th to Montgomery Streets, has served generations of locals. But after 80 years, it’s future is uncertain, as the City has decided to protect Lower Manhattan from rising sea levels and flooding by demolishing the current park and rebuilding it ten feet higher. East River Park was conceived by Robert Moses in the 1930s as the East River Drive (renamed the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive in 1945) was built. While Moses enjoys a reputation as a callous, car-centric destroyer of neighborhoods, he was also responsible for building tens of thousands of acres of parks and beaches in New York City and surrounding areas. East River Park was built on landfill, replacing an industrial area of warehouses and piers that largely served the coal and lumber industries. This shoreline transformation to parkland was the first of its kind in New York City, preceding Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and others by many decades. As reported by the NY Times on July 27, 1939, “The park to be opened today has tennis courts, wading pools, fields for football, baseball, field hockey, softball and soccer. There are also volley ball, basketball, handball, shuffleboard, hand tennis, paddle tennis, and horseshoe-pitching courts. A roller-skating rink will be frozen over for ice skating in winter, and an open-air dance floor will be similarly concerted in cold weather.” East River Park is the largest park in Manhattan south of Central Park, and must have been a profound and welcome change for the surrounding residents. I c...

746 East 9th Street. Service Builders Supply is visible.

93 Avenue D; 283 East 7th Street Building Date : 1903 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Samuel Greenstein Original Architect : Alfred E. Badh Description & Building Alterations This six story New Law tenement building was designed by Alfred E. Badh and was erected in 1902 to house 20 families for $45,000. The building is light brick with red brick detailing brick belt courses along the second story and windows feature pediment and broken pediment lintels, arches, and decorative keystones. Stores were located on the ground floor, which is still true today. The building was originally owned by Samuel Greenstein of 123 Orchard Street. Two earlier buildings were demolished to make way for this building.

Williamsburg was incorporated into Bushwick as the "Village of Williamsburgh" within the Town of Bushwick in 1827. After two years, it had a population of over 1,000, a fire department, and a post office. Its prime location on the East River encouraged industrialists to build shipyards around Williamsburg. As such, it became a hub of industry. In 1840, Williamsburg separated from the Town of Bushwick and became the Town of Williamsburg. Edmund Smith Driggs, a Williamsburg resident, was elected the first president of the Village in 1850. Driggs Avenue is named after him. It became the City of Williamsburg (then discarding the 'h' in 1855 and was organized into three wards. Finally, in 1898 Brooklyn became one of the high boroughs within NYC and so Williamsburg became part of the City of Greater New York. The Williamsburg Bridge was opened shortly after.

Vacant lot at East 3rd and Lewis Streets, 1938. The brick tenement at center-left is No. 382. A decade later, these buildings would be razed for the development of the NYCHA Lillian Wald Houses (completed in 1950). Out of frame to the right and casting a large shadow is P.S. 188, which still stands on the north side of Houston Street. The northeastern corner of the school building is still labeled “Lewis Street.”

Williamsburg Bridge from South 6th and Berry Streets, April 28, 1937. Whereas the Brooklyn Bridge served to unite two independent cities, the Williamsburg Bridge (also spelled "Williamsburgh"), completed after the consolidation of Greater New York, functioned as a highway within the single, larger city. The Williamsburg, the first all-steel suspension bridge, had been proposed as early as 1882, even before the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge, but its realization was long opposed by powerful ferry interests. Residents of Brooklyn's Williamsburg section felt that the area was suffering economically and in status after the Brooklyn Bridge opened and focused attention on Manhattan and away from their neighborhood. In addition, construction of the Brooklyn Bridge had escalated the population and property values in the city of Brooklyn; simultaneously the growth rate of the village of Williamsburg (also known as the Eastern District) declined. After the Williamsburg Bridge opened, the few orthodox Jews who had earlier settled in Williamsburg, one of the many small towns that comprised Brooklyn, were soon joined by many other Jewish immigrants who fled the squalor of Manhattan's overcrowded Lower East Side tenements. Although not considered as aesthetically satisfying as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Williamsburg enjoyed its own renown. It was the first suspension bridge to feature towers made entirely of steel, and the 110-foot depths to which its caissons were sunk represented a new engineering accomplishment. When finally completed, the Williamsburg was the longest suspension bridge in the world, 4.5 feet longer than the Brooklyn Bridge. For five years after the Williamsburg opened, the City was unable to coordinate mass transportation activities for it; only walkers, cyclists, and privately-owned carriages used the span. In 1908, the Brooklyn Union Elevated Railroad Company (later the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co., now the BMT) became the first mass transportation line to cross the bridge.

Nos. 328-334 Stanton Street, ca. 1937.

Take a walk from the Williamsburg Bridge to admire the neighborhood as it was and still is.