Courage Said, “It Shall Be!”

Before 1883 the only way between New York and Brooklyn, the first and third largest cities in America, was by boat. John A. Roebling drew a bridge high enough for sailing ships to pass under and long enough to cross the river in a single span. He died before work began. His son built it anyway. It took fourteen years.

1. 28 June 1869

   The designer falls

   John A. Roebling is standing on the Fulton Ferry slip, fixing the spot for the Brooklyn tower, when a docking ferry crushes his foot against the pilings. He is 63. Tetanus sets in, and he dies on 22 July. The trustees turn to his son. Washington Roebling is 32, a Civil War officer who helped his father build the record-setting span at Cincinnati.

2. 19 March 1870

   The Brooklyn caisson

   The foundation goes in first. It is a giant timber box, 168 feet long and 102 feet wide, open at the bottom. Tugs tow it down the river to the Brooklyn shore and sink it onto the riverbed. Inside, compressed air holds the river out while men called sandhogs dig away the mud and boulders. Masons stack stone on the roof, and the whole mass sinks as they dig.

3. December 1870

   Fire under the river

   A worker’s candle sets the caisson’s timber roof smoldering. Washington Roebling goes down and fights the fire for hours, until he collapses and has to be carried out. Then he floods the caisson. Fireboats pump it full of river water and it stays drowned for days. The damage is repaired, and in March 1871 the Brooklyn caisson is filled with concrete at 44½ feet.

4. May 1872

   Stop at 78½ feet

   The New York caisson goes deeper, and the air pressure grows with it. In the first five months of 1872 about 110 men come down with caisson disease, the bends, and three die. Bedrock is still far below. Roebling judges the packed sand and gravel at 78½ feet strong enough and stops digging. The tower still stands on it. The bends have wrecked his own health too.

5. From 1872

   Orders from the sickroom

   Washington Roebling can no longer go to the river. He runs the job from his bed by letter and memo. His wife, Emily Warren Roebling, learns the mathematics, the strength of materials and the cable work. She carries his orders to the engineers and brings back their questions. In 1882 some trustees move to replace the crippled chief engineer. The vote fails, and Roebling stays.

6. 14 August 1876

   The first rope

   Both towers now stand. A scow pays a wire rope across the bottom of the river from tower to tower. The crews wait more than half an hour for a gap in the boat traffic. Then the signal comes, the steam engine hauls, and in four minutes the rope swings clear of the water to cheers from the wharves and the ferry boats.

   

   Assistant engineer C. C. Martin, from the New York towerGo ahead!
7. 25 August 1876

   Across on a wire

   E. F. Farrington, the master mechanic who will build the cables, climbs into a boatswain’s chair hung from the new rope and is hauled across the East River, tower to tower, while thousands watch from both shores. He waves to them on the way. He goes first on purpose. He wants the riggers who will follow him to see his “entire confidence in the strength and security of the work.”

8. June 1877 – 5 October 1878

   Spinning the cables

   Wheels run back and forth over the river on the traveler ropes, each one laying a loop of steel wire. Riggers on a swaying footbridge set every wire in place. When contractor J. Lloyd Haigh is caught slipping rejected wire into the cables, Roebling orders 150 extra wires added to each one. The last wire crosses on 5 October 1878. Each cable holds 5,434 wires and 3,515 miles of steel.

9. 24 May 1883 · Afternoon

   Opening day

   Business stops in both cities. President Chester A. Arthur and Governor Grover Cleveland walk across from the New York tower as warships in the river fire salutes and steam whistles roar on both shores. After the speeches they go to Washington Roebling’s house on Columbia Heights to honor the man who built it. That night fireworks burst over the river. At midnight the bridge opens to everyone.

   Mayor Seth Low of Brooklyn, accepting the bridgeScience said, “It is possible,” and Courage said, “It shall be!”