Brooklyn Based‘s Nicole Davis files this special post and photos from the London Side of the Telectroscope, the Brooklyn side of which is at Fulton Ferry Landing:

Compared to the fanfare over the Telectroscope in NYC (due in part to enthusiastic fans like myself), Londoners don’t seem nearly as excited about this tunnel-eye view across the pond. Could it be because they’re not excited to see Brooklyn?

Or is it because unlike New York, you actually have to pay money to see who’s on the other side? Visitors here deposit a pound into an old-school, fortune teller booth, and these hands scribble something upon your ticket, which “entitles the Bearer…to see across continents.”

On opening day, the line at 7 pm in London (2 pm EST) was non-existant, and the view to Brooklyn felt amazingly close. (Brooklyn Bridge was in sight, but I’m not sure Brooklyn gets as good a view of Tower Bridge, pictured here.) Many on Fulton Ferry Landing had access to dry erase boards to scribble messages, while over on London’s South Bank there was just one board to go around the many kids clamoring to write things like “We Love Where You Live!” (Awww…) I wrestled the board out of the hands of a little boy and wrote “We Just Moved Here From Brooklyn!!” which the attendant on the other side got a kick out of. “Where?” he wrote back. “Clinton Hill!” I replied. A woman next to him then wrote “I live on the other side of Prospect Park,” which prompted someone here to ask “Why would we care about that?” (Limeys.)

Needless to say, the Telectroscope is probably way more fun when you actually recognize the folks on other side of the lens. But props go to the attendants, who are keeping the mystique of this public art stunt alive, at least on this end. As I was leaving, I heard someone ask if the Telectroscope was powered by satellites. “No,” one of the guards explained, “this is a tunnel that goes beneath the Atlantic.”
—Nicole Davis