July 24 2018 | By Anika Burgess for Atlas Obscura
Famous Landmarks, Before They Were Finished
Above: Manhattan Bridge, March 23, 1909. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/LC-USZ62-100104
If you ever find yourself traveling by boat along New York City’s East River, stand out on deck as you pass under the Manhattan Bridge. For a fleeting moment, as you look up, you can glimpse the underbelly of the great landmark. From here, it takes on a new dimension: vast beams of steel cross and overlap, appearing like a metal runway stretching across the sky. But as soon as you emerge from its shadow, it reverts to its usual form, an elegant suspension bridge amid the city’s towering skyline.
It isn’t always possible to find an unusual perspective on famous landmarks, but photos taken during their construction can often provide one. In black-and-white or grainy color, they’re filled with promise but not yet substance—scaffolding around a skyscraper skeleton, pieces of a sculpture in a workshop, the foot of a tower reaching into nothing.
A photograph by Louis-Émile Durandelle of the construction of the Eiffel Tower, taken in January 1888. In this photo, the tower is reaching its first level; it was completed on March 31, 1889. COURTESY OF THE GETTY’S OPEN CONTENT PROGRAM
Excavating for the London Underground, Great Northern and City Railway, London, c. 1903. THE PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES
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