@norbertobriceno: Kinda Interesting Things #218: Bristol Basin on the East River If you’re walking along the East River between 23rd and 34th Streets, you’ll come across the Waterside Plaza. But what you might not realize is that beneath your feet lies a piece of another city — one that was nearly reduced to ashes during World War II. This is the Bristol Basin. This stretch of land between 23rd and 34th Street is where Manhattan quite literally meets the ruins of Bristol, England. During World War II, the city of Bristol was heavily bombed by the German Luftwaffe. Entire neighborhoods — homes, schools, cathedrals — were turned to rubble. When American ships carrying aid and supplies from New York sailed across the Atlantic, they had no British goods to replace them on the return trip. They couldn’t just sail back empty. Empty cargo holds made ships dangerously unstable — they rode too high in the water, at the mercy of wind and waves. To keep them balanced, captains filled the hulls with ballast — heavy material used to stabilize the vessel. So, they filled their hulls with the very bricks and stones of the bombed city. When those ships arrived in New York, that rubble was unloaded and used as landfill along the East River — helping to shape the ground we now know as the FDR Drive and Waterside Plaza. Sources: “Not in Their Backyard” (New York Times, 2009) “The Parts of NYC Moved from the United Kingdom, Now Part of City’s Land & Architecture” (Untapped New York, 2016) “How bricks from Bristol were used to build part of New York” (BBC, 2017) #nyc #DidYouKnow #bristol #nychistory

Norberto Briceño

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Sunday 02 November 2025 15:06:27 GMT