The Man Who Climbed The Verrazano (And Has The Photos To Prove It!)

This week, a tourist was arrested for climbing the Brooklyn Bridge illegally. But not everyone who’s scaled a bridge in New York City has been busted for it — just ask Dave Frieder, the man who climbed and photographed every one of the city’s bridges from the top.

With the 50th anniversary of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge coming up on November 21, I asked Dave to send us a few of his favorite photos of the longest suspension bridge in the United States and share his story.

Frieder, who was born in Queens and raised New Jersey, became interested in photography at seven years old, when his parents bought him his first Kodak Brownie camera. As an adult, Frieder moved to New York where he serviced and installed x-ray equipment for a living, but he kept taking photos as a hobby.

Then, one day, a photographer who was mentoring Frieder suggested he find a subject that he was passionate about. Inspired by a breathtaking photo from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Frieder set about climbing and photographing every bridge in New York. To gain access to the bridges, Frieder reached out to city officials — and his persistence paid off.

“After all the begging, the pleading, the phone calls, the letters, I had eight years of unprecedented access to all the bridges in the city,” Frieder says.

Unfortunately, all that came to an end on September 11, 2001, when New York stepped up its security measures.

Here’s how Frieder describes climbing the Verrazano:

Wearing a hard hat, gloves, and harness, Frieder would take one of the Verrazano’s four elevators to the top of the arch.

Usually the sound of the elevator upset the peregrine falcons that nest in the cables, and they immediately started squawking and pecking with razor sharp beaks at the elevator walls.

“They just sit there and squawk at you, but theres nothing they can do,” Frieder says. “Of course the bridge wasn’t designed for them, but they think it is.”

Once he managed to fend off the falcons, Frieder would scale two long rung ladders to get onto the bridge’s cables.

Walking along the cables — which measure three feet in diameter — Frieder would then take photos of the bridge from every angle.

The view from the top is “magnificent,” says Frieder.

“One thing I will never do is go digital,” he adds. “It doesn’t convey what I see and feel when I take a photograph.”

Frieder plans to self-publish a coffee table book with his photographs of New York’s bridges by next year.

All photos courtesy of Dave Frieder, used with permission.