Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge from Bay Ridge
— — a mile of steel held up by light.
Not only on a wall.
“From the promenade at the foot of 69th Street, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge runs the eye out across the harbour to Staten Island. It opened in 1964 and held the longest suspension span in the world for seventeen years. The Bay Ridge side gives the working view: container ships sliding under the deck, the towers catching first light at the south end of the bridge. Locals walk the Shore Road path at dusk. The bridge does the rest.
Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge from Bay Ridge, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge crosses the tidal strait between Brooklyn and Staten Island, the gateway between Upper and Lower New York Bay. It carries thirteen lanes of Interstate 278 across a main span of 4,260 feet, designed by the Swiss-born engineer Othmar Ammann and opened on November 21, 1964. From Bay Ridge, the most direct viewing point is the Shore Road Greenway and the small promenade at the foot of 69th Street, a few blocks south of the historic 69th Street Pier. Owl's Head Park, a short walk north, gives a higher angle across the Upper Bay.
The Bay Ridge shore faces roughly southwest, which puts the bridge in profile through the morning and frontlit through late afternoon. The strongest light falls about thirty minutes before sunset between mid-September and early November, when the angle catches the cables and the Brooklyn tower at once. The harbour traffic supplies its own theatre: container vessels bound for Port Elizabeth and the cruise ships pulling out of Red Hook pass beneath the deck on a steady schedule. In November the bridge anchors the start of the New York City Marathon, which crosses the upper deck to begin the race in Brooklyn.
The Shore Road Greenway runs roughly three miles along Bay Ridge from 68th Street to Owl's Head Park, paved and open at all hours. The R train at Bay Ridge Avenue or 86th Street puts a walker within ten minutes of the water. There is no pedestrian access to the bridge itself; the upper and lower decks are closed to walking and biking, with one annual exception for the marathon. For a closer angle, the Staten Island Ferry, free and running 24 hours from Whitehall, passes east of the towers on every crossing.