Walk the East River on a Deck Suspended in the Sky
Stand at the Manhattan entrance where Park Row meets Centre Street, across from City Hall Park, and the bridge lifts away from the city on a long ramp of masonry arches. The Brooklyn Bridge has carried people across the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn since it opened in 1883, when it became the first fixed crossing of the river and the longest suspension bridge in the world. Its neo-Gothic stone towers, with their pointed arches, rise over the water while the deck hangs from steel cables above the shipping channel. It is a National Historic Landmark, a New York City landmark, and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and it has been a major tourist attraction since the day it opened.
Climb the Promenade Between the Roadways
Your route across is the elevated pedestrian promenade, which runs between the two roadways, above them, and between the four main cables. The path is generally ten to seventeen feet wide, and the iron railings along it were made by Janes & Kirtland, the Bronx foundry that also produced the United States Capitol dome and the Bow Bridge in Central Park.
- Walk the full span. The main span between the two towers is 1,595.5 feet; with the approaches the bridge measures 6,016 feet between the curbs at Park Row in Manhattan and Sands Street in Brooklyn.
- Pause at the towers, where the promenade rises to just above the crossbeams and connects to a balcony that slightly overhangs the roadways.
- Look up at the cables: four main cables, each 15.75 inches in diameter and containing 5,282 parallel galvanized steel wires, with vertical suspender cables and diagonal cable stays hanging from them. Since the 2000s, LED "necklace lights" have run along the main cables.
- Watch the traffic mix. The bridge carries passenger vehicles, pedestrians, and bicycles; trucks are not permitted, and a protected two-way bike lane opened in 2021.
If you skate, note that the space under the Manhattan approach once held the Brooklyn Banks skate park, which used the approach's support pillars as obstacles. It closed in the mid-2010s during renovation, and parts of the space beneath the approach have since reopened as parkland called the Arches.
Time Your Crossing for the Light and the Crowds
Because the deck sits high above the river while both shores are low, the approaches slope down and extend far inland, so the walk is longer than the span alone suggests. The crossing rewards an unhurried pace: give yourself time to stop at the towers and to take in the views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines, which the bridge frames from the promenade. The bridge is in continuous use, so there is no single quiet hour to promise, but a crossing made at the start or end of the day gives you the low light on the stone and the cables. Whenever you go, the promenade stays open even while rehabilitation work narrows portions of it. The single highlight not to miss is the moment the promenade lifts you above the crossbeams at a tower, with the diagonal stays fanning down and the roadways running beneath your feet.
Choose Your Shore, Then Keep Going
You can start from either side. In Manhattan, the pedestrian entrance is at Park Row and Centre Street, across from City Hall Park, east of City Hall. In Brooklyn, entrances are at Cadman Plaza East, or where Boerum Place meets Tillary Street. Whichever direction you walk, the bridge lands you within reach of more of the city: the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in and around the Financial District, the Empire State Building and the American Museum of Natural History farther uptown, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and, on the Brooklyn side, the BAM Peter Jay Sharp Building.
Decide which shore you will start from, pick your hour, and let the promenade carry you across the East River at the height of the towers. The bridge has been doing this work since 1883; all you have to do is walk.