The Great Bridge

When my friends and I were old enough to visit and explore New York City on our own we would always visit the Brooklyn Bridge. It was in close proximity to skateboarding spots and the pedestrian footpath offered an inexpensive way to see the city views. When I lived in the there years later, I would often visit friends who lived in Dumbo, bike or walk across the bridge. It was always such an iconic part of the city for me. After reading The Great Bridge, David McCullough’s telling of the building of the bridge, I understand more about the history and significance of this iconic landmark.

The bridge straddles the East River and connected what were two separate cities when it was opened in 1883. It also seems to bridge two distinct eras in American history — the postwar era and the preindustrial age. For example, when the Brooklyn tower was completed, it was the tallest structure in the Western hemisphere — it had to be to tall enough so that the the height of the bridge span would allow ship masts of that day to pass underneath. Subsequent bridges would be constructed entirely of steel and would lack the classic, warm charm of the Brooklyn Bridge’s gothic stone arches.

From an engineering perspective, the bridge was the word’s first steel suspension bridge and had the longest span of any bridge at that time. The construction would employ “caissons”— immense iron boxes that would be pressurized and sunk into the riverbed to support the massive towers. The caissons would present the most significant technical and human challenges to the construction of the bridge as workers (including chief engineer Washington Roebling) were affected by a little-understood affliction called “caisson disease”, later known as the bends.

The story effectively ties together the societal and technological significance of the building of the bridge alongside the political and human stories of the characters involved to help us appreciate the magnitude of the historical landmark. That, to me is what history is all about. I know I’ll look at the Brooklyn Bridge differently the next time I’m there.