I’ve recently been watching a period drama series set in New York City during the early 1880s. A number of episodes feature story lines about the building of the world famous Brooklyn Bridge which officially opened on May 24, 1883. At the time of the bridge’s construction, it spanned the East River linking the separate cities of New York and Brooklyn.

The show reminded me of a wonderful book that I sold many years ago titled The Bridge A Poem by Hart Crane. Illustrated with photographs by Richard Benson, it was printed in 1981 for the members of The Limited Editions Club in New York in an edition of 2000 copies signed by the photographer.

This book featured bright blue paste papers wrapping the box and making up the end sheets in the book. The papers are reproductions of the originals made by Carol Blinn. Paste papers are made by mixing pigment with a starch to create a paste that can be painted on a paper to decorate it, the paste mixture allows the pigment to be manipulated, moving it with different tools until the desired effect is created. The artwork suggests a body of rolling waves under blue sky.

This edition maintains many of the visual themes of the first edition of The Bridge, first published in 1930 by the Black Sun Press, which is wrapped in a blue paper cover and features photos of the bridge by Crane’s friend Walker Evans.