WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE AT 100
The Williamsburg Bridge may not have inspired the adoration that certain other bridges have — no Simon and Garfunkel songs or Hart Crane paeans — but the Brooklyn Arts Council is making sure that its centennial is celebrated in style, with a truck-sized bridge-topped cake, exhibits and discussions. Serenades to the bridge include an Italian giglio brass band, Dominican merengue, klezmer music by Andy Statman and a choral rendition of Lee Feldman’s “Williamsburg Bridge.”
The “Willy B,” as its celebrants call it, has always been in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, which marked its 120th anniversary earlier this month. While the “first East River bridge” is renowned as much for its aesthetics as for its engineering, its younger sibling was constructed for one reason only: “bald utility,” as a 1903 Scientific American article put it.
Much of New York’s modern Jewish geography can be ascribed to the bridge, which enabled masses of Jews to escape the overcrowded Lower East Side by moving to Williamsburg, whose longtime Irish and German residents were moving farther into Brooklyn. The neighborhoods the bridge connects still have significant Jewish populations today. With the Lower East Side’s gentrification over the past decade has come a repopulation by observant Jews. In Williamsburg, if you take a left you’re among the artists, a right and you’re with the chasidim — not as prosperous as their Boro Park brethren but, like the artists, creative, energetic and fruitfully multiplying.
In 1987 composer Feldman moved to Williamsburg, which, he said, was the cheapest neighborhood he could find, but “desolate.” His strolls on the bridge’s walkway — “shoddy and dangerous, but with a hell of a lot of charm” — and his interest in other strollers is transmuted into the song “Williamsburg Bridge.” Now learning Yiddish, the composer is both Jew and artist, representing both Brooklyn neighborhoods where the bridge finds a foothold.
The Willy B itself first opened for business not in June, but on December 19, 1903 — so after the big party, it will have a chance to celebrate its birthday with its regular clientele. Without fanfare, it will then do what it’s always done — take people from one place in the city to another.
Continental Army Plaza Park area, Roebling at S. 4th Street, Williamsburg; June 22, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., please visit Web site for complete listings; free. (www.brooklynartscouncil.org)
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Cornell pro-Palestinian student leader opts to leave US, as Columbia ‘self-deportee’ makes her case to return
-
Fast Forward ‘Need a final solution’: Podcast host calls for mass deportation of U.S. Jews
-
Fast Forward Britain’s Tate to return Nazi-looted painting to heirs of Jewish art collector
-
Fast Forward 3 sentenced to death for murder of UAE Chabad rabbi
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.