Mexican tall ship hits Brooklyn Bridge.

Sailors seen dangling from the Top Masts of the Mexican navy vessel that collided into the Brooklyn Bridge. It appears that several people were hanging and/or clutching on to objects several hundred feet in the air in an attempt to avoid falling.pic.twitter.com/Y3Bt145IxF

— Noteworthy News (@newsnoteworthy) May 18, 2025

"I have never had this feeling about any book. I do kind of feel that way about the Internet!"

I comment, in last night's post about the death of David McCullough, in response to boatbuilder's comment: 

The Great Bridge is a really wonderful book. I thought--how can a big fat book about the Brooklyn Bridge be anything but a snoozer? Couldn't put it down.

"Couldn't put it down" — really? Literally? Does that ever happen to you — literally — and if so, what was the book? 

"Beauty and the Beast... Loneliness... Old Grocery Horse... Brook’n Bridge...."

That's it! That's today's sentence from "The Great Gatsby" — taken out of context. That is really out of context. It's impossible to locate yourself in whatever meaning it would have in the book. I'm tempted to scroll back one sentence to get some footing, and I do, but it sends me reeling:

"Police Arrest About 400 700 Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge."

The NYT reports:

Things came to a head shortly after 4 p.m., as the 1,500 or so marchers reached the foot of the Brooklyn-bound car lanes of the bridge, just east of City Hall....

Where the entrance to the bridge narrowed their path, some marchers, including organizers, stuck to the generally agreed-upon route and headed up onto the wooden walkway....

But about 20 others headed for the Brooklyn-bound roadway, said Christopher T. Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who accompanied the march. Some of them chanted “take the bridge.” They were met by a handful of high-level police supervisors, who blocked the way and announced repeatedly through bullhorns that the marchers were blocking the roadway and that if they continued to do so, they would be subject to arrest.

There were no physical barriers, though, and at one point, the marchers began walking up the roadway with the police commanders in front of them – seeming, from a distance, as if they were leading the way....

Now, there's a controversy about arresting the people who were further back. To some of them, it seems, it looked like they were being given permission to march on the bridge roadway, and then the police captured the whole group with orange nets. Or so the protest folk say.

UPDATE: The number has been revised up to 700.

"who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley..."

Memorialized in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" was Tuli Kupferberg, founder of The Fugs, dead now at 86. The jumping off of the bridge — Manhattan, not Brooklyn — was a suicide attempt, survived.

The Brooklyn Bridge is 125 years old tomorrow.

I'd been looking at the Brooklyn Bridge for the last 9 months, but I'm back in Madison now, so I'm missing the festivities. I must have walked across the bridge 20 times while I was living in New York, and I still have a picture of the bridge as the welcome page of my iPhone. So let me mark the occasion with a few of my favorite pictures of the bridge:

I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday in the early evening.

And there was that one guy skateboarding across:



Oh! I was ravenous when I got to the other side:



I craved sustenance:



And I found a comfortable little corner:



In an old favorite place:



Where I ate, among other things, a fig:

40° — that's warm enough to walk over the bridge, isn't it?

Looking back at Brooklyn:

Into the movie theater, "Into the Wild."

I saw the movie "Into the Wild" yesterday. This was only the second movie I've seen since arriving in New York in mid-August. (The other was "Across the Universe" — blogged here.)

Why don't I see more movies? 1. I don't like the physical constraint of committing to sitting in a chair for 2 hours. 2. I only go to movies I think I'll like and still don't much like the movies I see. 3. Few movies seem like the sort of thing I'll like. 4. I have no shortage of other things to do (which is the case for anyone who loves to read). 5. I don't find myself in social situations where going to the movies is what people do together (and I don't see why people want to spend their precious time together doing something that involves so little interaction with each other).

Why did "Into the Wild" overcome my resistance? 1. I wanted to take a cab to 27th Street and 11th Avenue to begin a walk that would take me through a bunch of art galleries...



... and then all the way back to Brooklyn Heights, and "Into the Wild" was playing at a theater on 19th Street and Broadway, so what I usually experience as noisome restraint would rest me up for the walk through downtown Manhattan and across the Brooklyn Bridge. 2. Having read the book "Into the Wild," I was interested in seeing a visualization of it. 3. Some of my very favorite movies are about men at the existential edge: "Grizzly Man," "Touching the Void," "The Pianist," "My Dinner With André." (I know André is just sitting at a restaurant table throughout the movie, but he describes a search for his soul through mountains, deep forest, the Sahara, and the inside of a grave.)

How did I like "Into the Wild"?

1. The actor — Emile Hirsch — who played Christopher McCandless, was cute — like the young Leonardo di Caprio — but he did not radiate emotion. Compare him to Adrian Brody in "The Pianist," whose character, like McCandless, is starving. Brody made me feel what was happening to him as he descended into the most desperate human condition. Hirsch couldn't do that, though he was supported by terrific actors (especially Hal Holbrook), profound landscapes, and that squalid little bus. He seemed like a really nice kid with a lot of idealism and enthusiasm who made a few unfortunate choices and so, sadly, never got the chance to grow up. Unlike the character in "The Pianist," McCandless made his own choices. He rejected society, but we can't see much anti-social edge in Hirsch's portrayal.

2. The photography didn't move me. The beach, the canyon, the desert, the mountains — these are all beautiful locations, but this isn't a travelogue. These things should be photographed to convey emotion, but they looked about the way they'd look if you went there and saw them for yourself. There are 2 key scenes where Hirsch climbs up a hill, acts enthused, and gets the old man played by Holbrooke to climb up there too. It reminded me of the scene in "Titanic" when Leo DiCaprio shows Kate Winslet how to live by getting her to stretch out her arms on the prow of the ship. It's a Hollywood cliché. (Too bad Hirsch didn't yell "I'm king of the hill!")

3. I nearly walked out about a third of the way in. Something about Hirsch and Catherine Keener romping on the beach and plunging into the ocean felt stupid and phony. We're told the character is afraid of water, and then Keener — the mother figure he finds to replace his real and too-distant mother — makes it possible for him to go swimming. I forced myself to stay, and I see the story arc this was part of. He leaves his inadequate parents. (They're excited about the idea of him going to Harvard Law School and haven't a clue why he doesn't want them to buy him a new car.) He goes on the road where he finds replacements for his mother and father (Keener and Holbrook). He interacts with water — gets caught in a flash flood, kayaks through rapids, plunges in the ocean, fords a stream — which are probably meant to symbolize birth/mother. And he encounters a rocky terrain and kills and butchers some animals — squirrel and moose — (squirrel and moose???) — which are probably meant to symbolize his struggle with death/father.

4. The movie raises but hardly explores the issue of celibacy. We're shown this attractive young man, who seems to have a feeling for other people, in the presence of sensuous females. Kayaking, he comes upon a bare-breasted woman, but she has a boyfriend and he has to run off. (He's running from park rangers). Later, a beautiful, sensitive girl throws herself at him, but she's 16, and he's upstanding about that. (He burns his money and Social Security card, he kayaks in violation of clearly stated rules, and he steals rides on freight trains, but he's rigorous about the age-of-consent laws.) So the movie shows us the path not taken — love from a woman could replace the inadequate parents — and the character is given pat excuses for not going there. Still, why did he forswear sex? In the end, dying alone, he writes in his notebook: "Real happiness must be shared." This is very affecting, and it is an important idea in the intellectual development of this man who reads a lot of books. But something is left unexplored. Why didn't McCandless want sex?

Did you walk all the way home?

2 buildings, 2 bridges, 2 pedestrians.

An old man with a package is walking up the hill. (This is the hill that makes Brooklyn Heights heights.) A perhaps-young woman with her foot in a cast is walking down the hill toward the overpass that connects two parts of the Jehovah's Witnesses buildings. In the background: the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge.

Down under the bridge today.

I took a walk down under the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges today.



I took the Clarence Thomas memoir with me, and I read it in a café in DUMBO and on a park bench on the Promenade. Oh, look:



See, that's my message to you that I'm done "live-blogging" my thrilling read through "My Grandfather's Son," and it will be back to multifaceted everyday life here on the Althouse blog.

Things noticed and possibly having to do with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

We walked up Hicks Street early on Saturday, with plans to hike over the Brooklyn Bridge, over to the Seaport to buy half-price tickets to a Broadway show, etc. etc., but we stopped to talk to these guys:



They were guarding this movie equipment, so what movie was it? They're kind of horsing around, but they mention Brad Pitt, and then a woman comes along and was all "George Clooney was standing right here yesterday." So, yeah, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. That sounds too made up, like you're just pulling movie star names out of a hat.

But, no, they're really filming "Burn After Reading." It's the Coen Brothers new movie -- not set in Brooklyn Heights, but Brooklyn Heights is supposed to look like Georgetown.

I would have walked right by and not even noticed that was movie equipment, but my sister noticed and stopped and engaged the guys and the passerby in conversation.

Really, I had more conversations with strangers this weekend. I'm normally in aloof mode when I'm on the street. I don't want anyone harassing me.

She's noticing more things as well. She was the one who noticed that "Anatomy of Love" was propping up the air conditioner...

Speaking of propping... maybe the book was a prop for the movie. Burn After Reading. It makes too much sense. You burn with love, you burn a book, "Anatomy of Love" is a book that you might want to read if you burned with love and needed some air conditioning (and maybe it deserves burning), and if you burned with love and read "Anatomy of Love" and made love in the air conditioning, then later, your love might go cold and the book would only be useful for propping up the air conditioner.

My sister also noticed, right nearby, that someone had put an origami animal on the window sill to keep company with the animals lined up inside the window.



It seems too sweet and clever not to be part of the movie too.

And now it seems that the world is full of so many connected and interesting people and things. Pay attention!

Posing with the bridge.

A police helicopter poses with police officers and a tiny motorcycle:



Just something I saw today in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I don't have the backstory. A graduation photo?

People love to pose with the bridge. Planning the next shot:

Pilgrimmage to 3rd Street.

This morning at about 8 a.m., I set out on a long walk where my goal was to see the place I lived in Park Slope for 2 years before I moved to Madison in 1984. I'd lived in 4 other places in New York City before that: East 91st Street, East 85 Street, Jane Street, and Washington Square Village. Every single one of those places was a 2 year lease, so that was 10 years in New York, with the last 2 years in Brooklyn, on 3rd Street.

I wanted to start out walking south on Smith Street, because readers keep writing in the comments that I will probably like Smith Street. And they were right. I did like Smith Street. (Smith Street was named after Samuel Smith, who had a big farm centered at what is now the intersection of Smith and Livingston and who was mayor of Brooklyn for a short time in 1850. Source: "Brooklyn By Name.")

I found a nice café, where I sat by a window, ate some eggs -- not cold eggs, scrambled eggs, with salmon -- and picked up some WiFi:



Café LULUc. Where they serve delicious french fries with their eggs.

There were lots of other interesting looking places, like Stinky Brooklyn (a cheese store):



Now, Smith intersects with 3rd Street, so that looked simple enough, and I knew there was the issue of getting over the Gowanus Canal. You can't just walk down any street going east around there. You need a bridge over the canal. But 3rd Street, I knew, had a bridge, and I was just hoping the area wouldn't be too dicey. The fact is, it did scare me a little. There was that abandoned handbag near the "hazmat trained only personnel" sign:



And then the canal itself:



It's creepy. The canal was once a creek, Gowanus Creek, named after what "Brooklyn by Name" calls the "Canarsee sachem Gowane," that is the leader of the Carnarsee Indians named Gowane. There were Indians here once, and that oily horror was a creek. The creek was widened into a canal, and industrial development followed.

I walked quickly, across numbered avenues, beginning with 3rd Avenue, toward my goal just east of 7th Avenue. There were only a couple blocks that made me nervous. That block between 4th and 5th Avenues brought back a strange memory. We were driving home one night and the instant we entered that block the police put up a barricade behind us. In front, there were police cars everywhere and cops -- did I see guns? -- squatting for protection behind opened car doors. What were we supposed to do? We kept driving. There's always another block to get to.

Crossing 7th Avenue felt like walking into the past. The trees were so heavily overgrown. Maples, making the street a dark tunnel. A dark tunnel into the past -- more unsettling than the Gowanus Canal.

Which building did we live in? It was one of the first few brownstones on the north side of the street, but which one? They look nearly alike. I looked at the gates, which have different designs, and thought that when I saw the right one the memory of it would light up my brain. We lived on the ground floor -- or I should say the below-ground floor, because the window sills were at ground level. That meant we looked out at that wrought iron gate constantly. Shouldn't I recognize the one that I gazed at for 2 years?



No. No memory flashes. I kept walking up the street, toward Prospect Park. (Named after Mount Prospect, which is now the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway, but was a strategic outlook -- a prospect -- for our soldiers in the Revolutionary War.) A quarter century ago I walked these two blocks toward the park a hundred times, with two young boys and a husband. See that bench by the 3rd Street entrance to the park?



A big family drama took place there. Where does ours rank on the list of thousands of human dramas that have taken place there?

I decided to walk down 2nd Street, back to 7th Avenue and then walk north on 7th Avenue, which was my long walk to the subway to go to work (at a Wall Street law firm). I wanted to see how it had changed in all these years. Had it become as posh as I've gotten the feeling it has when, living in Madison, Wisconsin, I read in the New York Times about life in Park Slope? (Answer: No!)

As I walked toward 7th Avenue, I saw this:



I know that little building! It wasn't blue 25 years ago. And it wasn't called Two Boots. Nor did it have an alligator out front for my kids to beg to ride. But I knew that stumpy building. It had a big noisy ventilation fan on the roof that undercut the pleasure of hanging out in our backyard (like this).

So let's count the paces from here to 7th Avenue, walk back to 3rd Street and count out the same number (35), and then, here it is:



This is it. Past arrived at. But it's closed up, shut off to me now. I can only weakly replay the mental pictures of the things that went on in those years, when we were all so young.

A Brooklyn walk.

I took a midmorning walk, down under the Brooklyn Bridge...



... then along a deserted street that would have scared me at little, except that there were police standing around at regular intervals. The graffiti was creepily cheerful:



Sensual:



Bursting with life:



Around the corner, I found a nice café. There weren't many people there. And no WiFi. If there were WiFi, would it be full of people? Maybe it's just too early on a Saturday.



Around another corner, buildings encroached, seemingly spanned by a segment of Manhattan Bridge: