Construction begins on the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s the first suspension bridge to use steel—rather than iron—cables.
Conceived in 1867 by famed bridge designer John Augustus Roebling, it was by far the world’s longest suspension bridge, with a deck that connected Manhattan and Brooklyn suspended by cables hung from two neo-Gothic towers that pierced the skyline. Not precisely certain of the strength of his materials, Roebling designed the bridge to be six times stronger than it had to be. As a fail-safe, he added straight, diagonal cables to stiffen the superstructure. They make the bridge not a true suspension bridge (which has just vertical stringers, or suspender cables, hanging from huge, curved catenary cables) but a hybrid of suspension and cable-stayed design. That hybrid also gives the steel webwork its characteristic—and mesmerizing—crisscross appearance.
Roebling died of tetanus in 1869, the result of an injury sustained while surveying the bridge site. John’s son Washington assumed the title of chief engineer, but tragedy struck again when he became ill with the bends (severe decompression sickness) after rapidly exiting one of the bridge’s caissons. It fell to Washington’s wife, Emily Warren Roebling, to supervise construction of the bridge. Though never formally trained as an engineer, Emily had studied alongside her husband and began her own research after he became bedridden. Historian David McCullough credits Emily with saving the project, and she rode alongside President Chester Arthur during the ceremonial opening of the bridge, in May 1883. The Brooklyn Bridge has over the years carried P.T. Barnum’s elephants, light-rail, and six lanes of automotive traffic, as well as the thousands of pedestrians who left Lower Manhattan after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
But it’s not for sale, no matter what that guy on the corner tells you.—KB