|

“New York Entrance To The Brooklyn Bridge"

Evidently the "Elevated" Gentleman Intends to Stay.

Taking
16 years to complete, the Brooklyn Bridge officially opened in May 1883,
standing as a technological marvel in its day and remaining a cultural
icon today. In the featured cartoon, the figure standing above the New
York entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge may be financier Jay Gould. In
1882, Gould's New York World ran a series of articles on alleged
corruption involved in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. By the
next year, the newspaper was under new ownership and celebrated the
bridge's opening as an historic event. Gould, who was part owner of the
Manhattan Elevated Railway, apparently continued his opposition to the
rival route of transportation.
Interest in construction of a
bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan across the East River dated
back at least to a petition presented to the New York State Legislature
in 1802. Other plans and discussions recurred over the ensuing decades,
but the major obstacle was always the East River, which was actually a
wide and turbulent tidal strait and one of the busiest of waterways. The
only solution to avoid the rough currents and interrupting maritime
traffic was to build a suspension bridge, the dimensions of which had
never before been achieved. The idea was the brainchild of John Augustus
Roebling, an engineer who had designed several bridges and invented wire
cable.
Roebling's plan was to erect
two massive towers of stone, each standing 268-feet tall and weighing
nearly 68,000 tons, built with gothic arches through which the roads
would run. The towers had to be large and strong enough to bear the
weight of suspended steel cables that connected to the roadway,
including the upward force of the cables on the roadway and the downward
force where they passed over the tower-tops. In addition, four thick
steel cables would run under the length of the roadway's span across the
river, connecting to the towers at each end. Perhaps most remarkable and
far-sighted in Roebling's design was his use of steel, particularly in
the cables, for strength and durability. No other bridge or building to
date had been so dependent on steel, "the medal of the
future," in the words of the engineer. The bridge would be over a
mile long and able to bear almost 19,000 tons.
In early 1867, Roebling
presented his plan to William C. Kingsley, a wealthy Brooklyn contractor
and publisher of the Brooklyn Eagle, who was
impressed. Kingsley contacted State Senator Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn,
who steered through the state legislature a charter for the New York
Bridge Company (for which Murphy was president and Kingsley was chief
contractor). In order to gain support for the project in Manhattan,
Murphy bribed New York aldermen and gave Tammany Hall boss, William
Tweed, and two of his colleagues nearly half of the remaining private
stock in the venture. Passage of the charter was also helped by the cold
winter of 1866-1867, which had emphasized the vulnerability of ferry
crossings in the ice-laden waters of the East River.
In May 1867, Roebling was named
the chief engineer for the suspension bridge, which was called the East
River Bridge by Roebling and the New York Bridge by Brooklyn residents
(who saw it as a bridge to New York), but most commonly, the Roebling
Bridge, the Great Bridge, or the Brooklyn Bridge. Roebling began hiring
a crew and making preliminary plans for construction. He had nearly
completed his task in June 1869 when the U.S. Congress, which had
oversight of all navigable rivers, approved the project. Later that
month, however, tragedy struck when a ferry hit a waterfront piling,
crushing Roebling's foot and causing lockjaw, seizures, a coma, and,
finally, death on July 22. His son, Washington Roebling, was appointed
as the new engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Construction began in January
1870, and in May, laborers were lowered into the water in caissons
(large, bottomless but watertight, chambers), where they worked around
the clock (except Sundays) digging for bedrock. A year later the towers
began to emerge above the water level. While submerged in a caisson in
1872, Washington Roebling suffered from decompression sickness (a common
problem for the workers, called "caisson disease" at the time
and "the bends" today), which left him paralyzed for the rest
of his life. However, he continued managing the project by
monitoring bridge construction through a telescope from his bedroom
window in his Columbia Heights (Brooklyn) home, and relaying directions
through his wife, Emily, to the site engineers.
Construction of the Brooklyn
Bridge was hazardous, resulting in the deaths of 26 men in addition to
John Roebling from various accidents involving snapping cables, falling
masonry, and "caisson disease" (three from the latter). The
difficult, dangerous conditions of the caisson workers prompted them to
strike in 1871 for higher wages. The New York Bridge Company agreed to
an increase that was less than what the workers wanted, but a threat to
fire them all ended the strike. Other problems included defective wire
rope that had to be replaced (1878) and a financial shortfall until
additional appropriations were made (1879). Nevertheless, work
continued, with the Brooklyn tower completed in June 1875 and the New
York tower a year later. The steel cables were then connected over the
towers in August 1876 to the jubilation of tens of thousands of
spectators, who cheered as cannons boomed and church bells rang.
On May 24, 1883, schools and
businesses across the metropolitan area closed so that New Yorkers could
attend the opening ceremonies for the Brooklyn Bridge. Honored guests
included President Chester Arthur, Governor Grover Cleveland, and the
mayors of Brooklyn and New York. The Brooklyn Bridge was celebrated as
the "new eighth wonder of the world," and compared by poet
Walt Whitman to Columbus's discovery of America. The opening of the
bridge to pedestrian traffic a week after its official opening
unfortunately saw the death of twelve people, who were crushed in a
panic caused by the shouted false warnings that the bridge was
collapsing. The Brooklyn Bridge was the longest bridge in the world
until surpassed by a Scottish bridge in 1890, and became the cultural
and engineering landmark that John Roebling had predicted in 1867.
Robert C. Kennedy
|

|
|