Nothing Is More Sacred or central to the iconography of Manhattan than its bridges. For countless artists, writers and poets, these enduring structures have provided not only a link from the city to the outside world, but a means by which the great metropolis was introduced. Bridges reflect the spirit of their age; and the bridges of Manhattan are consistent with the city's pride in itself and its confidence in the future (why else build an edifice like the Brooklyn Bridge?).

This lovely book, containing fourteen full-color paintings by Bascove and a bounty of pertinent prose and poetry, is a celebration of the city's bridges, their architects and designers, their builders and their advocates. In it, readers will find a dazzling array of prose and poetry, from the classics by Hart Crane and William Carlos Williams, to lesser known, but no less resonant, work by writers as diverse as Gay Talese and Helen Keller, Octavio Paz, and Derek Walcott.