Masterpieces of bridge building are so commonplace today that we have forgotten the role they played in the imagination of the nineteenth century. The actual feat of previously impossible engineering, which a great bridge required, and then the structures themselves, not only changed the landscape but also engineered an emotional impact on society. The nineteenth century began to realize it had entered a new age—the Age of Technology. The engineers who built these bridges were the giants of their time...The bridges these men built became metaphors for possibility, for what could be achieved, and they continued to be inspiring right into the 20th century and the imagination of Hart Crane. Look at Metzner’s portrait of the Brooklyn Bridge. She, too, has clearly caught the inspiration. Hers is a classic view that has attracted the eye of other artists before her, but Metzner transformed what most artists have interpreted as symbolic of American power and industry into something spiritual, into what Hart Crane also saw in his Bridge. 

From the introduction by John Wood