The Brooklyn Bridge

Walt Whitman's poem about Crossing Brooklyn Ferry is often associated with the Brooklyn Bridge because it can be seen as symbolic in the same way the Brooklyn Bridge is. Both the poem and the bridge itself represent the connection of Brooklyn and Manhattan by crossing the river, both literally and symbolically. Although Whitman's poem is about crossing the river on a ferry, people might be able to relate the experience to crossing the bridge because the attachment he feels towards the side he is looking at is probably something many people feel when they cross the bridge and look over as well. Haw also descirbed the construction of the bridge to mirror the personality of Brooklyn and Manhattan. For example he talks about the tension of the cables that hold the bridge together are representative of the tension between the cities of Brookyln and Manhattan, which Whitman seems to capture in his poem as well.