Scale Changes Everything

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Brooklyn Watercolor John Hulsey

While in New York City recently, we journeyed across the East River to Brooklyn to visit family living in what is called the DUMBO neighborhood (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass).

Once upon a time (1787), the area was called “Olympia”, named by Comfort and Joshua Sands who had purchased the land to develop as a summer getaway for New Yorkers. It connected to Manhattan via a ferry stop before the Brooklyn Bridge was opened and became primarily a manufacturing area filled with warehouses and factories. Among the innovations that have come to us from the area is the cardboard box, invented by a Scottish emigrant named Robert Gair. For a time, the area was referred to as Gairsville.

One of the most photographed spots in the country comes from the unique framing of the Empire State Building through the legs of the Manhattan Bridge. The clearance below the bridge is 135 feet and the towers on it rise up 336 feet. T…