In this Inside Llewyn Davis clip, John Goodman‘s drug-addled character declares that the Brooklyn Bridge is the most traditional New York City-area place to commit suicide from, and that anyone jumping instead from the George Washington Bridge is some kind of confused loser. He means that the Brooklyn Bridge has acquired more notoriety as a suicide spot, most likely due to Steve Brodie having jumped off the bridge 127 years ago (7.30.86) and lived. A site called Dark Destinations claims that the Brooklyn Bridge “has more suicides than any of the other bridges in the city, including the George Washington and Verrazano-Narrows, which are actually much higher from the water.” But the GW bridge is no slouch. It averages about six deaths a year. 18 people died from GW jumps in 2012, 13 in 2010 and 10 in ’04. There’s also that story told by William Holden‘s Max Schumacher character in Network, the one about him oversleeping and throwing on his raincoat and jumping into a cab and saying “Take me to the middle of the George Washington Bridge!’ and the cabbie turning around and pleading, “Don’t do it, buddy…you’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you.” I don’t know about 1961 (i.e., when Inside Llewyn Davis takes place), but by today’s standards the GW and Brooklyn bridges are fairly evenly matched.

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