PEDESTRIAN FOOTBRIDGES

Here's a photo (above) that made me want to stand up and cheer when I found it. It's of New York City, at Broadway and Fulton Street and Park Place, taken in 1866.

A book called "New York Then and Now" said the pedestrian footbridge was a popular place for courting couples who wore their best finery to watch the goings on down in the street.

Here's the same place today. It's a handsome corner even now, but even better in my opinion was the view with the footbridge from 1866. Amazingly, a purely utilitarian device to get people across the street actually added to people's enjoyment of the scenery. Well...it added to mine, anyway.

In my opinion footbridges add to the aesthetic value of any urban scene. Almost any man-made thing worth seeing is worth seeing from more than one angle.

There's so many kinds of footbridges.

Some (above) may not cross a road. Some are more like footpaths that cling to the sides of buildings, above street level.

Some bridges aren't bridges at all.

My favorite type of footbridge is the covered wooden kind, but maybe that's a fire hazard. Isn't there some way to make that sort of thing work in the city?

Unfortunately not all footbridges are equal. The white one above doesn't work because it's in a badly designed area, and doesn't seem to serve any important purpose.

This park bridge over swampy mud, on the other hand, earns its keep.

Maybe that aimless, white bridge could be made a little more interesting with addition of exercise bars.