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Walking the Brooklyn Bridge is a unique experience with stunning views. |
THERE ARE SOME among us who travel
Kids make memories. The places they see, the things they do, even the smells they smell, often last a lifetime, even steer the ship of their lives.
And so it was with me and the Brooklyn Bridge.
I was 6. There was a war on, air-raid blackouts in the Great City when my mother took me to visit her sister Sissy.
This is what I remember: Sirens in the night, lights out, adults shushing everyone around them (why the quiet insistence I still do not know); a great vessel lying on its side in the harbor (now I know it was the burned hulk of the great liner Normandie), and Sissy's feisty terrier mutt, rescued from the streets of The Village, where she lived.
And the distant sight of the towering Brooklyn Bridge!
They never took me to the bridge. I had seen the bridges of Washington, but they were nothing like this monumental thing, and I knew I had a date with it, someday.
I can't believe I waited so long. Brooklyn's bridge is, surely, Manhattan's, too, but the vast structure bears the name of those who backed and had the most to gain from it, and they were mostly leading lights of Brooklyn.
The story of the Brooklyn Bridge is many things but mostly it is the story of an incredible human enterprise by John Roebling, his son, Washington Roebling and Washington's wife, Emily. Without the three of them, there would be no Brooklyn Bridge. Oh, there would be bridges linking the little farming community of Brooklyn to mighty New York City, but they would not have been the same.
Because of the Roeblings, and especially the amazing elder Roebling, world bridge design and engineering took a quantum leap forward, not only in size and appearance but, more importantly, in the materials and techniques used to build them that made it possible to span great reaches of river.
Roebling, an immigrant German engineer who lived in Trenton, N.J., pioneered large wire cable suspension bridges in North America and, some might say, in the world. In the 1850s, he was quick to grasp the immense potential of wire cable and the use of structural steel to revolutionize bridge building.
Well before the Civil War, Roebling conceived the idea of a steel cable suspension bridge crossing the East River, a crossing that would forever alter Brooklyn and give a great jolt to the growth of Manhattan.
A perfectionist, with a keen eye for business, Roebling's smartest move may have been the founding of what was to become a giant company manufacturing steel cable. Already well-off and a highly respected industrialist and bridge builder, it made him wealthy.
Because Roebling had raised his son, Washington, very much in his own rigorous, disciplined mold, the son slid easily into the leadership role left when the father suffered what was to become a fatal injury in June 1869. That was one week after he had won final approval for the building of his dream.
Both Roeblings were dynamic, hands-on men, and Washington quickly took the reins and began the bridge, which was quite unlike anything anyone had built.
And because it broke new ground, the project encountered problems never before dealt with. One of these was the deep airtight cylinders in which men sunk the caissons that would ultimately support the immense weight of the bridge. The cylinders were pressurized, which meant that those laboring within them--as much as 90 feet below sea level--were subject to the then-unknown and potentially fatal malady now called "the bends," or nitrogen narcosis.
Roebling, no distant managerial type, spent hours daily down in those caissons with his men, known as "sand hogs." Working conditions were described as not only dangerous, but hellish.
In 1872, Roebling, working in the caisson on the New York side of the river, was stricken and nearly died of the illness. He would remain an invalid the rest of his life.
As Roebling slowly recuperated, his wife, Emily, took over daily management of the entire project, in consultation with her husband. She saw it through to completion. The bridge opened amid unprecedented fanfare, May 24, 1883.
Walking the bridge, I found a large bronze plaque dedicating the mighty bridge to none other than the amazing Emily Roeb-ling. Mrs. Roebling has been referred to as the world's first female civil engineer. A modest woman, who made no such claims; she supervised what had to have been the largest-ever job of its kind throughout nearly all the 14 years it took to build the bridge.
Only those who worked closely and directly with her eventually grasped that her role was both major and central to its success. Listen to this from "The Bridge," David McCullough's seminal work:
"As was apparent to everyone who met her, Emily Warren Roebling was a remarkable person At first she was credited only with brushing up [Washington's] English, which may have been the case. But by and by it was common gossip that hers was the real mind behind the great work and that this the most monumental engineering triumph of the age was actually the work of a woman, which as a general proposition was taken in some quarters to be both preposterous and calamitous."
It was--and remains--a success beyond all prior estimates, both in terms of traffic carried and its symbolism to a booming nation and to the world. It remains an American icon.
So successful was the Brooklyn Bridge that within the next 25 years three other major crossings opened, linking Manhattan with its boroughs across the East River--the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Queensboro bridges. In addition, the Triborough toll bridge and Hells Gate railroad bridges span the East River.
I recently heard New York referred to as "Bridge City," a term I had not previously encountered. I wondered about this and began digging into it a bit. Geographically, New York City is a place of a) almost numberless people and vehicles and b) it is liberally laced with waterways of all sorts and sizes.
According to a Web site for the New York City Department of Transportation, the city oversees 790 overwater bridges. But wait. A number of other government agencies also operate and maintain bridges within the city, bringing the total bridge count for the Big Apple to 2,027.
Bridge City, indeed!
But the granddaddy of them all, the bridge known 'round the world, still standing tall, bearing hundreds of thousands of vehicles and pedestrians, remains the oldest and grandest--the Brooklyn Bridge.
For more information, "The Bridges of New York" by Sharon Reier is an excellent source, although an update is needed for this 1977 classic. Also, "The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge," by David McCullough, is done with his usual storytelling genius and reliance on original sources. Online, an excellent overview may be found at the New York City Department of Transportation's Web site for bridges: nyc.gov/html/dot/html/motorist/bridges.html.
PAUL SULLIVAN, a former reporter with The Free Lance-Star, is a freelance writer living in Spotsylvania County. Contact him by mail at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; by fax at 373-8455; or by e-mail at PBSullivan2@cs.com.
