Hegel and Bagels on the Brooklyn Bridge

Roar! The other day I was reading about how John Augustus Roebling, the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, studied philosophy under Hegel while living in Germany. Hegel even considered him one of his brightest students! So apparently when designing the Brooklyn Bridge, Roebling incorporated many of Hegel's dialectic principles. I must have stomped over the bridge a million times since it was built and never knew this! I definitely needed to take a trip across the Brooklyn Bridge and approach it from a fresh perspective so I went out at once to visit the bridge!

First, I went up to Myrtle Ave and walked under what remained of the old Myrtle Ave Elevated train. Getting to downtown Brooklyn is difficult from my neighborhood. It sure would be nice if there was still a train that ran there! Roar!

After a nice walk down Myrtle Ave I cut over to Tillary Street and walked up onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Here I am in front of the East Tower. This is a pretty sweet bridge! It's well known that the Brooklyn Bridge was largest suspension bridge built at the time and the first suspension bridge built in America, but few people realize how this bridge realizes the dialectic principles of Hegel in architecture! First, there are "the stone towers  to represent the material of the ancient world. Then, there are the steel cables to represent the bonds of the modern world holding it together!" This is classic Hegelian synthesis!

Here is the plaque on the Bridge that commemorates its completion! Many people said Roebling was crazy and such a bridge could never be built! People having been saying stuff like that for centuries, even to me! Those people must never have studied under Hegel, otherwise they'd have known that if "what is actual is rational then what is rational must also be actual!" Following that logic Roebling couldn't possibly fail!

I stopped at the center of the Bridge and decided to have a delicious everything bagel! The everything bagel is also another great example of Hegelian synthesis. The bagel itself being associated with the old world and the "everything" flavor representing the melting pot of America! Roar!

Like the everything bagel the Brooklyn Bridge achieves a "unity between essence and experience of the inner world of life and the outer world of its appearance!"

Mmmmmm! Now that is some delicious unity!

The Brooklyn Bridge has been rendered in so many different works of art [My favorite being the Hart Crane poem To the Brooklyn Bridge. "O harp and altar, of the fury fused, (How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)" Get's me every time!] that few stop to think of the bridge itself as art! I'm not just talking about its design, according to Hegel "Art is a synthesis by the objective mind, working through the artist (Roebling) of matter and form" Plus the beauty of the bridge as art is "the pleasure given and taken in and making and observing the order, propriety, and harmony of the synthesis." Wow, Hegel sure wasn't into saying things plainly but he sure was into synthesis! Roar!

The Brooklyn Bridge realized another synthesis as well, according to the scholar Trachtenberg the bridge "is a fusion between two sets of values: the visionary... and the pecuniary." This basically means that Roebling was achieving a balance between his vision of the bridge and the capitalistic goals that came with its construction. I guess this made it a great symbol for New York City! Trachtenberg also claimed the Brooklyn Bridge was the realization of the great Trans-Atlatic ideal and was the "virtual completion of Columbus' efforts!" Roar!

While the Brooklyn Bridge itself is the ideal example of Hegelian synthesis I find it funny that it is surrounded by various examples of failed synthesis! 

Failure of synthesis between man and nature: To the north is the Manhattan Bridge, which is by the same designer as the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge. After the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge the Manhattan Bridge was reinforced to prevent another disaster from occurring! Roar!

Failure of synthesis between form and function: To the West two garish skyscrapers loom on either side of the Brooklyn Bridge. On the right is the vacant Verizon tower easily the ugliest building in NYC! On the left is the unfinished Beekman tower designed by famous architect Frank Gehry! While I like the look of the Beekman tower is still really out of place with its surrounding. At least when it's done it will have people living in it, unlike the Verizon tower! Roar!

Failure of synthesis between the real estate market and reality: To the East the skyline of Downtown Brooklyn has changed dramatically over the past few years with all the condo developments that have gone up! Too bad there aren't enough people that actually want to live in them! Roar!

There are ton of padlocks all over the Bridge! I guess people want to leave mementos of themselves wherever they go! Turns out this trend started in a cheesy Italian romantic comedy called I Want You! Now people all over the world are doing it! It's become such a big thing that lots of money has to be spent to remove the locks! I can't even bite them off! Roar!

I'm not against leaving mementos though, I just like to leave ones of  a less permanent nature. I put a sticker up on the bridge and put a stencil up on entrance to the bicycle ramp over on the Brooklyn Side. Now everyone will know I was here! Roar! 

Despite the many different syntheses the Brooklyn Bridge was able to accomplish there is still one that escaped it. During the construction of the West Tower workers digging the foundation underwater started coming down with a strange illness when brought back to the surface! This was the first recorded instance of the bends! So the bridge was unable to achieve a synthesis between human beings and being under water! Because workers kept coming down with the bends they never did hit bedrock so I guess Kierkegaard, a critic of Hegel, was being literal when he called the Brooklyn Bridge "an impressive structure built on sand." Roar!