Hassam’s Yesterday vs. Our Today

On the left is Childe Hassam’s “A Winter Day on Brooklyn Bridge,” done in 1892, and on the right is the modern day image of what he painted.

Although there have not been many changes in this view since Hassam depicted it over a century ago, Guillermo and I had a difficult time getting our own rendition to look exactly like that of the artist. There were two main conflicting factors that determined the outcome of our picture, and both involved the lampposts you can see on either side of the two arches. We had to find a spot from which to take the picture where both lampposts would appear outside the arches, but also where the lamppost on the right would appear to be almost as tall as the arches in the background. Eventually we realized our perspective was slightly different from Hassam’s because the only way to achieve an image just like his was to stand on something. At the angle from which we were viewing the scene, the lamppost appeared to be taller than the arches because we were below it. Thus, the lamppost in our picture doesn’t fit completely in the frame. We had to make a choice between capturing both lampposts outside the arches with only the pole of the right lamppost showing, or capturing only the right lamppost outside the arches with most of it showing. As you can see from our picture, we went with the latter option.

Aside from the unavoidable technical differences in the two images, the only major change between the 19th century painting and the 21st century photograph appears to be the floor on which all the pedestrians are walking. In fact, we can’t even tell for sure whether the flooring changed because in the painting it is covered in snow. If you look closely, you can see buildings to the left of the arches in the distance, similar to those in the photograph, just not as many. A slight difference between the two images is that the bench in the painting is missing in the photograph, as is the structure all the way on the right of the painting.