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| Washington Roebling watches from his sick room as the Brooklyn Bridge is built. |
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Water made New York, as it helped make a thousand other towns and cities. New York enjoyed a vast, protected harbor, a broad river (the Hudson), and, with human help, a canal (the Erie Canal) that connected New York City with the Great Lakes. All three elements helped bring people, materials, and goods together until New York was the nation's leading port, largest metropolis, and financial capital.
During the bitterly cold winter of 1866-1867, however, water -- in the form of ice -- threatened to break New York. The East River froze over. While a few brave New Yorkers ventured out onto the ice, ferries, barges, ships, and all other manner of river craft were stuck. Goods and people couldn't get in or out. New York's rivers had turned from highways into roadblocks.
A bridge over the wide Hudson was beyond the engineering skills of the day. An East River span seemed possible, but just barely. The East River is really an arm of the sea connecting Long Island Sound to New York harbor, and it has strong currents and tides. Though not as vast as the Hudson, it is still plenty wide -- over 1,600 feet at its narrowest point.
The proposed bridge would have to be high enough to let great ships pass beneath and strong enough to support streetcars. John Augustus Roebling, the man who had built a spectacular bridge over Niagara Falls, rose to the challenge.
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| During the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. |
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Roebling designed a great suspension bridge, but died of tetanus after -- ironically -- the ferry that the bridge would replace crushed his foot as he was standing on the dock taking measurements for the placement of the bridge towers. Washington, his son, took up the task of building the bridge. Then Washington, too, became a casualty of the bridge -- he fell victim to "the bends," an agonizing condition caused by spending too long working in chambers deep under the water; and was bedridden. His wife Emily became his link to the crews working on the bridge, relaying his orders and managing the construction site. Sixteen years after the great freeze, the Brooklyn Bridge -- the world's longest suspension span -- opened to the public, with a huge fireworks celebration.
Top illustration: From the collection of the New-York Historical Society.
Middle illustration: Courtesy of the Roebling Collection, Institute Archives & Special Collections, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180.
Illustration at bottom: Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York.
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Early New York