December 19, 2002

• Winter’s Tale

  
  

  The title is that of a novel by Mark Helprin.

  
  

  On this date in 1903, the Williamsburg Bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan was opened to traffic.

  
  

  From the opening of Helprin’s 1983 novel:

  
  

  “The horse…. trotted alone over the carriage road of the Williamsburg Bridge, before the light, while the toll keeper was sleeping by his stove and many stars were still blazing above the city.”

  
  
  
  
  
  

  A memorable  rhyme: Seven is   heaven, Eight is   a gate.

  A 1985 illustration

  
  

  See also Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star.

  
  

  “The Forms are abstract but real.”

  
  

  — Rebecca Goldstein on Plato

  • 5:30 pm
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