KidBridges

ENTRY 2

When we got to the bridge, we had to decide where we were going to stand when we did our drawings. We all picked the middle of the bridge.

Me and Juan ran up to the middle to scout it out. We wanted to be at the exact spot where Brooklyn becomes Manhattan. Right on the bridge there was this movie crew. They had this balloon with them which they said was to measure the wind on the bridge.

They didn't need any kids to be in the movie which was too bad because me and Juan were ready.

You mean "Juan and I", not "me and Juan", right?

Ms. T.

When they built the bridge, nobody marked off the middle point on the bridge. But we figured out that the halfway point must be where you can stand and look both ways and be able to see that both sets of towers are the same height. (Which we already knew that they were: they are 245 feet high each).

Who is "they"? Do you remember that the Roeblings, the father and the son, designed the bridge, and that Emily Roebling directed the workers who actually built it? We read all this on the plaques on the bridge.

Ms. T.

I showed Juan

how to check this out. I took my pen and held it straight up in front of my eye, and I marked the height of the tower with my finger. I turned around and did the same thing for the other tower. We walked back and forth a little till we found where the two towers looked like they were the same height when I measured with my pen. We also stood right in the middle of the walkway, but that was easy because it had a yellow line down the middle. Juan was on the lookout for bicycles because they come right at you and the bikers yell at you if you stand in the bike lane!

You found the middle of the bridge by taking advantage of its symmetry . Why do you suppose the builders of the bridge used symmetry? Where else can you find symmetry on the bridge?

Ms. T.

We stopped right there to draw, and me and Juan

faced Brooklyn, and Gina and Joel faced Manhattan.

"Me and Juan????"

Ms. T.

We had to have a vanishing point in the drawing, so we drew in the wooden walkway, so you could see how it "vanished" under the towers. That was it. The horizon line we used was where the towers came up out of the walkway. I also took some of the photos

with our camera.

Our drawings didn't really look that good, but Ms. T. says she'll help us use perspective to make them better next time we have class.

Oh, I almost forgot. When we got to the Manhattan side we got to have lunch there. That was the third time I've been in Manhattan.

Back to the Top | next journal entry