Francie K. Nolan got it right.

She had been excited about going to work in New York. Since such a tiny thing as a flower in a brown bowl in the library had thrilled her so, she expected that the great city of New York would thrill her a hundred times more. But it was not so.

The Bridge has been the first disappointment. Looking at it from the roof of her house, she had thought that crossing it would make her feel like a gossamer-winged fairy flying through the air. But the actual ride over the Bridge was no different that the ride above the Brooklyn streets. The Bridge was paved in sidewalks and traffic roads like the streets of Broadway and the tracks were the same tracks. There was no different feeling about the train as it went over the bridge. New York was disappointing. The buildings were higher and the crowds thicker; otherwise it was little different from Brooklyn.

-- A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith, 1943.