Brooklyn Bridge’s new bright lights shine on storied NYC landmark

The city will be illuminating the Brooklyn Bridge towers Thursday night, part of a renovation of the iconic crossing.

The Brooklyn Bridge towers glowed bright Thursday night with new LED lighting for the first time since the bridge’s centennial celebration in 1983.

Fifty-six LED lights turned on at 5 p.m., lighting the two towers of the storied East River suspension bridge and tourist magnet.

The new lighting system is part of a four-year, $300 million restoration project that city officials expect will wrap up later this year.

“Everyone loves a good new year’s ‘glow up,’ and thanks to our new energy efficient LED lighting system, the iconic Brooklyn Bridge will shine bright for all New Yorkers to enjoy,” Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said in a release.

“One of NYC DOT’s most cherished responsibilities is maintaining ‘America’s Eiffel Tower,’ and these new lights will showcase its beauty for decades to come.”

The so-called “necklace” lights on the bridges’ suspension cables were converted to LED bulbs in 2021.

New Yorkers may notice that the bridge has a new color — its brown patina has turned gray. The bridge’s original, intended look is revealed by a thorough scrubdown.

“After decades of maintaining a brown appearance from generations of dirt, grime, and pollution, the deep clean restored the bridge’s towers to their original gray color,” DOT officials said in a release.

The mortar that holds the bridge together was also repointed — with material from the same quarry in Rosendale, N.Y., that provided the bridge’s original mortar more than 140 years ago, a DOT spokesman told the Daily News.

Construction of the bridge began in 1869 in an effort to connect commuters in Brooklyn — then an independent city — to their jobs in Manhattan.

At the bridge’s centennial celebration in 1983 — the last time the towers were illuminated — then-mayor Ed Koch credited the Brooklyn Bridge with hastening the unification of the boroughs.

“The bridge is the unification of the city,” Koch said while marching across the span. “With the bridge, we became a single city.”

City officials estimate about 120,000 vehicles, 30,000 pedestrians, and 4,000 cyclists use the bridge daily.

Pedestrian use of the bridge has skyrocketed since bicycles were banned from the central walkway in 2021. About 34,000 people crossed the bridge on the average fall weekend in 2023, up from 17,000 in 2021, according to DOT data.

That figure led the city to take the controversial step of banning street vendors from the bridge earlier this month.

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