Liberty Island, for a long time known as Bedloe’s Island, is situated in the harbor, about one and three-fourths miles from the lower end of the city. In 1886 the famous Bartholdi statue was erected on this spot, and occupies its central surface. It is a colossal bronze female figure one hundred and fifty-one feet in height, on a pedestal one hundred and fifty-five feet high, and holding aloft a torch which is lit by electricity at night.
Immense bridges span the East River and Harlem River, and there are some thirty steam-ferries.
The New York and Brooklyn Suspension Bridge, opened in 1883, which cost twenty million dollars, was soon found inadequate for the enormous traffic, and a second bridge from Canal Street to Brooklyn was opened in 1909.
The Williamsburg Suspension Bridge, between Manhattan and Williamsburg, was opened in 1903. It cost twelve million dollars.
The Queensboro Bridge, of cantilever type, between Long Island and Fifty-ninth Street, was opened in 1909. Its cost was twenty million dollars.
In 1909 another bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn, built at a cost of twenty-six million dollars, was completed.
The Harlem River is crossed by several bridges, of which the Washington is noteworthy as being one of the finest in America.
Hell Gate Arch Bridge spans the East River at Hell Gate, between Ward’s Island and Astoria, Long Island. It was designed and built by Gustav Lindenthal for the New York Connecting Railroad to connect the Pennsylvania and New York, New Haven systems, at a cost, including approaches, of twenty-five million dollars. It is the longest arch in the world. The span is one thousand and sixteen feet ten inches between tower faces. The upper chord of the arch is three hundred feet above mean high water at the center and one hundred and eighty feet at the ends of the span; the lower chord is two hundred and sixty feet above mean high water at the center and forty feet at the ends; the roadway is one hundred and forty feet above mean high water.
Old New York is laid out very irregularly. Here the money interests and wholesale traffic are centered; Wall, New, and Broad Streets being the great centers of banking and speculative enterprises.
The newer part of the city, from Fourteenth Street to the end of the island, northward, is divided into twelve great avenues and several smaller ones, from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty feet in width, running north and south. These are crossed at right angles by streets, mostly sixty feet in width, running from river to river.