Strohmeyer & Wyman/Library of Congress
Pedestrians walk across the Brooklyn Bridge’s promenade in 1899, 16 years after the bridge opened.
Historic Headlines
Learn about key events in history and their connections to today.
On May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn with Manhattan, was opened to traffic with a celebration attended by President Chester A. Arthur, Gov. Grover Cleveland of New York, and Emily Roebling, the wife of the bridge’s main engineer, Washington Roebling.
The May 25 New York Times reported, “The pleasant weather brought visitors by the thousands from all around. … It is estimated that over 50,000 people came in by the railroads alone, and swarms by the sound boats and by the ferry-boats helped to swell the crowds in both cities. … The opening of the bridge was decidedly Brooklyn’s celebration. New York’s participation in it was meager, save as to the crowd which thronged her streets.”
The bridge took 13 years to construct at a cost of $15 million. German immigrant John A. Roebling drafted original plans for the bridge, but he died in an accident a year before construction began. His son, Washington,
took over the project and worked alongside laborers in underwater chambers known as caissons. He, like many of the workers, became ill with “caissons disease,” a disease now known as decompression
sickness or “the bends,” which occurs when one returns to the surface after spending time underwater. The disease forced Roebling to take leave from the project in 1872 and oversee the remainder of
the construction from his home, with his wife serving as a liaison between him and the construction crew.
When it opened, the Brooklyn Bridge, also referred to as the Great East River Bridge, was the largest suspension bridge in the world, with a span of 1,595 feet. It had two carriageways and two railway lines, with a raised middle platform for pedestrians, who could cross the bridge for the price of one cent. It was the first land connection between New York and Brooklyn, which previously was linked only by ferry or boat.
Six days after the bridge’s opening, a stampede caused at least 12 people to die when thousands of pedestrians became panicked. A year later, circus promoter P.T. Barnum displayed the strength of the bridge by leading 21 elephants across it.
Connect to Today:
In a February 2012 letter to the editor, Joan Marans Dim and Antonio Masi, authors of “New York’s Golden Age of Bridges,” wrote that, unlike the past, much of the steel used to build today’s bridges in the United States — like the new decks on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge — is produced in foreign countries like China. They wrote: “Once upon a time, America built big things. There existed a golden age of bridge construction … All were engineering marvels. Many were built during difficult economic times. All were built with American-made steel and other American-made products. America is no longer capable of building (or rebuilding) American-made large-scale bridges.”
In your opinion has the decline of heavy industry in the United States negatively affected American engineering? Why or why not? How do you think modern projects will measure up to those created during the “golden
age,” like the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge, which celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2012? Why?
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