Wednesday morning at 7am, an intrepid group of dedicated architecture fans gathered beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.
We walked into Manhattan as the sun came up over Brooklyn. And I told the quite gory story of the bridge’s construction. Spoooooky.
Afterwards, instead of gelato, we had coffee and breakfast and then Scott Stowell took us to an installation he designed for the Downtown Alliance, which included an illustration by iPhone-sketching Jorge Colombo, who just happened to be with us. We had him jump in his own drawing.
The next day, at noon, a slightly smaller group gathered in Bowling Green Park to learn about the Great Skyscraper Race of the early 1900s. Including 40 Wall Street, which was the world’s tallest for only a few weeks thanks to a secret spire the Chrysler Building unveiled at the last moment.
We talked about the various zoning laws that had required things like setbacks, or in this case, a public plaza in front of SOM’s Marine Midland Bank Building.
We saw the beautiful Woolworth Building, which I’ve been getting this killer view of daily from 7 World Trade, where I’ve been working at Fast Company all week.
I even “signed” a copy for these nice folks from Oklahoma.
But that’s not all! There are still two more days of walks. Hope to see you today or tomorrow!
More photos this-a-way, including more Lower Broadway shots by Sue Apfelbaum, who took a few of the photos in the guide (she’s also doing a cool project called #walkingtoworktoday, which I love for obvious reasons).
