Drone Images Capture Proposed Brooklyn Bridge View District

New developments on both sides of the East River have New Yorkers fretting over losing their views of the Brooklyn Bridge, and architecture critic Alexandra Lange thinks the city needs to do something about it. "It's time for the bridge to get a Special Scenic View district of its own, a two-way district that preserves sight lines both to and from its mighty span," she writes in her latest piece. On the Brooklyn side, Pierhouse and 60 Water Street are already crowding the landmark bridge, and in Manhattan, Howard Hughes could do the same in the South Street Seaport. Lange calls for "an invisible tube stretching from the anchorages on one side of the East River to those on the other, elastic enough to reach to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and Police Plaza, both raised, public platforms that offer distinctive, leveled-up perspectives on the roadway." In a city obsessed with waterfront access and pedestrian greenways, it's easy to imagine a continuous walking path along this view corridor. To give an idea of what this path might look like, photographer Aymann Ismail flew a drone along the route, capturing the corridor from a bird's eye view.

The images highlight what everyone already knows—that the Brooklyn Bridge is downright gorgeous and endlessly photogenic—but they also bolster Lange's point that new developments might destroy our vistas. Even from above the rooftops, Pierhouse and 60 Water seem too close for comfort, while in Manhattan, views from the Seaport are uninterrupted, but a tower on the site of the New Market building (see the view from here below) would certainly change that.

· The Brooklyn Bridge Deserves a Scenic View District of Its Own [Curbed]
· Controversial Seaport Tower Could Be Shorter Than 40 Stories [Curbed]
· All Pierhouse coverage [Curbed]