The Brooklyn Bridge was completed about 130 years ago in 1883, and remains an icon of New York architecture.
However, Brooklyn looked much different back then, as seen by this illustration done soon after the bridge was completed. How did the illustrator even get up there?
The drawing was produced by Charles Mangus & Company. Charles Magnus was a print publisher, map dealer, bookseller and stationer working in New York City in the late 1800s. Many of his later works were based on photographs, or on other works which he combined (and rarely credited, according to this biography).
Illustration: Charles Magnus & Company, View of Brooklyn from the Brooklyn Bridge, after 1883. (New-York Historical Society, Gift of Daniel Parish, Jr.).
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