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| The Independent New YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1883 Vol. XXXV. - No.1799 |
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(THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE.) BY WILL CARLETON. LET all of the bells ring clear- Let all of the flags be seen! The King of the Western Hemisphere Has married the Island Queen For many a day he waited By the lordly river's side, And deemed that the maid was fated To be his own true bride; For many a night he wooed her Upon her lofty throne, For many a year pursued her, To win her for his own ; Norr thankless his endeavor, Nor coy the regal maid ; But, like true love's course ever, The banns were long delayed. And boys to men had grown, And men their graves had sought ; But the gulf ,was yet between them thrown, And the wooing seemed for naught. And couriers oft were dashing 'Twixt him and his adored ; But still was the river flashing Betweent them, like a sword. In heart they well were mated ; And patiently and long They for each other waited - These lovers true and strong. Let never a flag be hidden ! Let never a bell be dumb ! The guests have all been bidden- The wedding-day has come ! Through many a golden year Shall shine this silvery tie ; The wondering world will gather here, And gaze, with gleaming eye. Philosophers will ponder How, blessed by the hand of Heaven. The world has another wonder To add to her ancient seven. Philanthropists will linger To view the giant span, And point, with grateful finger, To man's great work for man ; And all will bless the year When, in the May-month green, The King of the Western Hemisphere Was wed to the Island Queen. Brooklyn, N. Y.  
THE GREAT BRIDGE We publish, in our correspondence columns of this week, an interview with the Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan, one of Brooklyn's oldest and most honored residents, in regard to the East River Bridge which is today opened, by appropriate ceremonies, to public use. Mr. Stranahan has been connected with this enterprise from the commencement, as a member of the Board of Trustees; and it is not too much to say that his clear brains, long experience in the construction of public works, and far sighted sagacity have stamped themselves upon this bridge, and largely contributed to make it the structure which the people now behold with so much admiration. To him and his associates, and to the engineers so wisely selected by them, the cities of New York and Brooklyn are indebted for the most marvelous bridge structure that the world has ever seen. Two towers, one on each side of East River, resting upon caissons sunk below its bed to the solid rock, rise to the hight of 278 feet above high-water mark. The space between these towers is spanned by four steel-wire cables, each 15-3/4 inches in length between the towers. These cables on each side are anchored in enormous masses of solid granite. To these cables is attached the suspended superstructure; and both cables and superstructure have a strength about four times greater than will ever be required for any practical use. The bridge is eighty-five feet in width, and has two carriage roads, two rail tracks, and one large avenue for foot passengers. The distance between the termini of the bridge is about one mile, and the rail cars will con- sume about five minutes in passing from one terminus to the other, These cars are to be drawn by an endless steel rope, kept in motion by a powerful engine on the Brooklyn side of the river. The cables, the suspenders, and the bridge structure are all composed of Bessemer steel. The hight of the bridge, in the center of the river, is 135 feet above high-water mark and, with very few exceptions, this is sufficient for the passage of sailing vessels without lowering their top-sails. To stand up on the bridge is to be filled with wonder at its solidity and strength, while at the same time overlooking New York, Brooklyn, portions of Staten Island, and contiguous parts of New Jersey. The sense of the marvelous thoroughly penetrates the spectator; and all sense of fear and of danger just as thoroughly disappears. The cost of the bridge, including the land taken, is in round numbers fifteen millions of dollars, one-third of which falls upon the City of New York, and the other two-thirds upon Brooklyn. The time consumed in its construction is thirteen years. The trustees who have had charge of the work have given their time and service without salary. The general plan of the bridge was drawn by the elder Roebling, whose untimely death devolved the execution of the plan upon his son, aided by six assistant engineers. The people have waited long, and, for the most part, patiently, for the completion of the bridge and that for which they have waited is now realized. Today the bridge is opened by joyous ceremonies, and tomorrow it will begin its course of public service. In a few weeks the rail cars will be in motion, and then the people can cross the bridge in these cars, or drive in private carriages, or walk over on the avenue for foot passengers, as may suit their convenience. The primary and direct purpose of building this bridge is to establish the means of easy and safe communication between the cities of Brooklyn and New York, in addition to the ferry system already in existence, and in some respects far more perfect, since transit by the bridge will be unaffected by fogs or ice. These two cities contain an aggregate population of about two millions; and, at the rate of increase for the last half century, this population will ere long become ten millions. The bridge is practically a great street, connecting two cities, and wider than Broadway, in New York, and as solid in its foundations. The direct and obvious suggestion from the establishment of this means of intercourse is that these two cities are destined to become one city, under a common-municipal government. This idea Mr. Stranahan emphasized in his recent address at the banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and he repeats the same idea in our columns this week. He is entirely right on this subject. The tendency of a great and growing city is to absorb into its own bosom the surrounding suburban communities, and thereby make them a part of itself; and Brooklyn, as a distinct city, would have long since disappeared, and become a part of New York, but for the obstacle furnished by the East River. The means of intercourse furnished by the bridge will go far toward removing this obstacle and creating a public sentiment in both cities favorable to their consolidation. On this point Mr. Stranahan, in the speech referred to, eloquently said : " I may be mistaken, but I think that the public sentiment of .Brooklyn would cordially welcome a consolidation of the two cities under the title of New York. The East River Bridge, now superadded to the ferry system, will, as Brooklyn hopes, so affiliate the two cities in heart and sympathy, and so facilitate their mutual intercourse, that both, without any special courtship on either side, will alike ask the legislature of the state to enact the ceremony of a municipal marriage; and, if thus shall be done, then, I venture to predict that each will be so happy and so well content with the other that neither will ever seek a divorce." Whether this idea will be immediately realized or not, there is another idea that will be realized. The bridge will put Brooklyn and Long Island into direct and, uninterrupted connection with the railway system of the country. It is built so strongly that freight trains and Pullman cars can safely cross it and there can hardly be a doubt that it will be put to this service. The terminus of the rail track on the New York side corresponds with that of the system of elevated railroads and the same will be true on the Brooklyn side, as there is no doubt that in a short time the latter city will have an elevated railroad in direct connection with this terminus. New York and Brooklyn thus immediately connected by railway communication, will connect themselves with the whole country, as if there were no East River rolling between them and both cities will be largely the gainers thereby. "Manifest destiny " decrees the result and it is sure to come to pass. We congratulate the trustees of the bridge, the engineers, and especially the Chief Engineer, the people of New York and Brooklyn, and generally the people of the United States, upon the cheering auspices of the prescnt and the more promising ones of thc future. The occasion is worthy of all the enthusiasm which it has inspired. Mayor Low has recommended the people of Brooklyn to make the opening day a gala day, to close their stores, to illuminate their dwellings in the evening, and join in the general jubilation of the memorable occasion. Some fiftcen thousand letters of special invitation have heen issued. The President of the United States and the Governor of this state are to be present, orators are to be heard, and magnificent ftreworks in the evening will close the day of rejoicing. Grand and imposing as all this will be, the bridge itself will be grander still. It will be its own orator, and, for ages to come, its own historian.   At a meeting of the Brooklyn Bridge trustees last week a schedule of tolls was finally agreed upon. The toll for foot passeugers was ftxed at one cent; the fare in cars, five cents. Extensive preparations have been made for the opening of the bridge today. The President of the United States and Cabinet, the Governor of New York and Staff, with other distinguished guests are to be escorted from the Fifth Avenue Hotel to the New York Anchorage by the Seventh Regiment. Addresses will be made by William C, Kingsley, on behalf of the Trustees; Hon. Seth Low, on behalf of the City of Brooklyn ; Hon. Franklin Edson, on behalf of the City of New York. Orations will be delivered by Abram S. Hewitt for New York, and Richard S. Storrs, D.D., for Brooklyn. The President and Governor will dine with Mayor Low, and a reception will be tendered them in the evening at the Academy of Music. The bridge will be illuminated in the evening by electric lights and display of fireworks. The schools of Brooklyn have been ordcred closed, and the Mayor has re quested that business be suspended and that the city be decorated by day and illuminated by night. 
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THE GREAT BRIDGE. AN INTERVIEW WITH HON. J.S. T. STRANAHAN. THE INDEPENDENT, desirous of giving to its readers reliable statements in regard to the East River Bridge, which is today opened for public use, sought an interview with the Hon. J. S. T. Stranahan, one of the well-known citizens of Brooklyn, who, from the commencement of the enterperprise, has devoted his time and eminent abilities to this great work. A series of questions was submitted to him; and, in answer thereto, he speaks as follows: The question of bridging the East River had, by the newspapers and by citizens curious in such matters, been the subject of frequent discussion for a long time, certainly as far back as the commencement of my residence in Brooklyn, and various schemes to this end had been suggested. I took up this residence some forty years ago, and found this question one of the topics of conversation among thoughtful people. The idea is, hence, by no means a new one. A solid bulkhead pier of some five hundred feet in width from city to city, with a narrow opening for the flow of water and the passage of vessels in the center of the river, spanned by a draw-bridge, was at one time strongly urged by a gentleman now residing in Brooklyn. The fatal objection to this plan was that there was not the slightest prospect that the General Government would ever consent that so important of the sea should be thus obstructed. This solution of the problem, of though earnestly advocated by this gentleman, did not obtain favor with the people. The first feasible plan of a bridge across the East River that came under my observation was that of Mr. Julius W. Adams, an able .and well-known civil cngineer, which was on exhibition at the annual fair of the American Institute, in 1865. This plan differed from the one adopted by Mr. Roebling some two years later. The latter changed the terminus on the New York th side from Chatham Square, as proposed by Mr. Adams, to the present location, and also substituted cables of wire for steel links, which were a part of the plan of Mr. Adams. In 1866 my attention was called to the subject by Mr. William C. Kingsley and the Hon. Henry C. Murphy, both of them citizens of Brooklyn - the latter of whom, being then a State Senator, drew the bill authorizing the organization of a company to build a bridge across the East River, and secured its adoption by the Legislature of New York during the session of 1867. In the same year, mainly through the efforts of General Slocum, who was then a Representative in Congress from Brooklyn, permission was obtained from Congress to erect a bridge over the navigable waters of the East River. The charter obtained from the New York legislature, incorporating the bridge company, fixed the capital at $5.000,000, with discretionary power of increase, and also authority given to the cities of New York and Brooklyn to subscribe to the capital stock of the company such amount as their respective Common Councils should determine. New York subscribed $1,500,000, and Brooklyn $3,000,000, on condition that private subscriptions should be made to the amount of $500,000, which was done, but not without a large liability incurred by Mr. Kingsley. The organization of the company was perfected soon after the act of incorporation in 1867, and Mr. John A. Roebling was appointed engineer, and immediately entered upon the duty of preparing plans for the erection of the bridge, and for fixing its proper locality. In March, 1869, a board of eminent engineers was appointed by an understanding between Messrs. Kingsley, Murphv, and Roebling, to examine the plans prepared, and, after visiting the most famous suspension bridges then in the country - those at Niagara Falls and Cincinnati - they reported unanimously in favor of the plans of Mr. Roebling. A similar endowment was given by a board of United States engineers, appointed by the War Department of the Government. Mr. Roebling, during this year, while engaged in fixing the line of the bridge and its location on the Brooklyn side, was so injured by the swaying of the ferry-rack at Fullton ferry against a timber on which he stood, that he died in a few days thereafter. He was, indeed, a remarkable man, being gifted with the highest form of genius in his line; and it is not too much to say that his son, who was appointed to fill his place, inherited the characteristic qualities of the father. Upon him devolved the task of actually building the bridge, and he has done it to the satisfaction of the trustees; and that too, under all the disadvantages of being an invalid for some ten years, as a consequence of his devotion to the work. The labor of actual construction was commenced early in the year 1870, and was continued in charge of the incorporated company until 1875, when, by an act of the legislature, it was turned over to the cities of New York and Brooklyn, and the bridge then became a public work: The act making this change provided that a certain proportion of the trustees should be appointed by the mayor, comptroller, and president of the board of aldennen of New York, and the remainder by the mayor, comptroller, and auditor of Brooklyn, and also made the mayors and comptrollers of the two cities trustees ex officio. In looking back I marvel at the success of the engineers in handling the various and often extremely difficult problems they had to solve from time to time as the work advanced. I attribute this success, first, and mainly, to their eminent ability; and, secondly, to the fact that no change of the engineering force was made from the commencement of the work down to the time of its completion. Messrs. Martin, Paine, t Collingwood, McNulty, Pobasco, and Hildenbrand, who have been the assistant engineers under the direction of Mr. Roebling, have each and all earned for themslves a distinguished reputation by their diligence, fidelity, and skill in this service. The trustees have been exceedingly fortunate in the selection of their engineering agents. The sinking of the caissons on so large a scale was a matter of the deepest anxiety to the trustees and engineers down to the time when that on the Brooklyn side of the river found a solid foundation at the depth of forty-five feet below low-water mark, and that on the New York side at the depth of twenty-eight feet. The size of the Brooklyn caisson is 168 feet by 102, and that of the New York. caisson is 172 by 102. Everything depended upon the successful sinking of these caissons. Upon them rest the towers that bear the whole weight of the bridge and rise to the height of 278 feet above high-water mark. That part of the structure which is seen required less skill and less courage than that which is now forever buried out of sight. When this part was successfully completed the trustees and engineers felt that the most serious difficulty in achieving final success had been mastered. The late Hon. Henry C. Murphy, was, from the commencent of the work down to the time of his death, with the exception of a brief period, the chief executive officer of the company, while that existed, and of the trustees, after the bridge became a public work. The tact and ability displayed by him in the discharge of his duties won the respect and confidence of his associates during the long struggle in which they were engaged. Brooklyn, especially, should cherish with gratitude the memory of the distinguished citizen for this as well as other important services rendered by him. The obstructionists, who from the first have planted themselves squarely across the path of the trustees and made their task a hard one, have, I am happy to say, unwittingly done some service to the bridge. The delay of nearly one year in the work, caused by the refusal of Comptroller Kellv, of New York, to pay installments due from that city until ordered to do so by the Court of Appeals, gave time for the development of the fact that Bessemer steel could be furnished in this country of a character and at a cost that would admit of its substitution for iron in the construction of the suspended superstructure. And here let me say that I could never join in the severe censures of some of my associates when referring to Mr. Kelly's conduct in this matter, knowing, as I did, that those who obstructed the progress of the trustees by their appeals to him, had, at least, a plausible argument with which to claim his interference. Nor could I forget the valuable service he rendered to the bridge a few years before, in the contest of the trustees with Mayor Havemeyer, who could never talk about the bridge without giving vent to the severest condemnation of the undertaking and of all who had anything to do with it. When Mr. Kelly, after an absence of two years, returned from Europe, he found Tammany Hall mourning over the disgrace and disaster brought upon it by the acknowledged rascality of Tweed and his associates, and he at once determined to take a hand again in the management of his party and place it on a higher plane. And, after due consideration of the question, he decided to antagonize Mayor Havemeyer to the extent of giving important aid and help to those who were engaged in carrying forward the bridge enterprise. I shall never forget his valuable services rendered at this critical period. The trustees have had several periods of being investigated, the most notable of which was in 1874, when they were investigated by a committee of the Assembly of this state. The testimony taken and the report of the committee covered about one thousand pages of printed matter. It is pleasant, however, to remember that none of these investigations ever showed that a dollar of funds had been misapplied, or left any stain on the character of the trustees. No frauds have been detected and no defalcations have occurred in the clerical force employed. It is due to the truth to say that this great undertaking has been under the supervision of men of acknowledged integrity. This is what I said, not long since, in a short speech at thc banquet of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and I take pleasure in repeating the statement in the columns of TIlE INDEPENDENT. For the last eight years the mayors and comptrollers of New York Cityand Brooklyn, being ex-officio members of the board of trustees, have shared with them in the counsels and responsibilities of the work. I doubt whether any public work was ever conducted with greater economy or a more sacred regard to the general good. There never was a dollar of jobbery in it, from beginning to end; and the trustees meant that there should not be. And although they have not escaped the criticism of fault-finders, and, at times, the slanders of reckless vilifiers, they have been neither discouraged nor intimidated, but have steadily kept on their way, feeling assured that the final result would be an ample vindication. The bridge has undoubtedly cost more than was orignally contemplated; and it is well for New York and Brooklyn that this is the fact, since the bridge, as built, is a very different and much better structure than was at first anticipated. And, on this point, I cannot do better than ask you to republish, as follows, a paragraph in my Irecent speech at the banquet. of the New York Chamber of Commerce: "The original estimate was that the bridge itself would cost $7,000,000 and the land on which it rests has cost $3,800,000 making an aggregate cost of $10,800,000. The actual cost including the land taken, is about $15,000,000: This estimate, however, did not contemplate such a structure as the one that now exists. The height of the bridge was increased in obedience to the order of the Government, and its width and strength by the direction of the trustees. The bridge, as actually constructed, will support the freight and passenger trains of the trunk railways of the country. It has two carriage roads, instead of one, as at first intended. The original plan was that the approaches to the bridge should be simply iron-trestle work, for which the trustees thought it expedicnt to substitute massive arches of granite and brick. The cables and suspended superstructure are composed of steel, instead of iron. In a word, the bridge, as it now is, if it has cost more than the original estimate, is not the bridge that was contemplated in that estimate. It is higher, wider, and composed of stronger material. It furnishes an elevated highway between the two cities, wider than Broadway in New York. These changes, in the way of improvement, abundantly explain the increase of cost. They were needed to make the bridge what it should be." I doubt whether anybody now wishes that the bridge had been built on a cheaper scale. It is not too good, or too wide, or too strong for the different purposes had in view, no one of which could be spared without a sacrifice of at least some of the anticipated utilities of this noble structure. It would have been a serious mistake to both cities if the bridge, for the sake of mere economy in cost, had lacked anyone of the needed elements of the highest practicable usefulness. Neither city will be impoverished or embarrassed by the expense and both, taken together, are abundantly able to bear the burden, especially in view of the great advantages thereby secured to both. The holders of the bridge bonds, whether issued by New York or Brooklyn, need have no concern about their payment, principal and interest. Neither city believes in repudiation, and neither is in the slightest danger of bankruptcy. The two combined present a population of nearly two millions, and nowhere else in the whole country can we find, in an equal space, anything like an equal amount of accumulated wealth. Both have their magnificent parks, and now both are connected by a bridge highway that has no parallel in any bridge structure of the world. It is one of my cherished hopes that this bridge, perhaps supplemented by others that remain to be built, will, at no distant day, unite the two cities under one municipal government. It will greatly facilitate the intercourse of the people on both sides of the East River; and I cannot see any good reasn why they should not be one in municipal organization, as they are practically one in a community of interests. And confident am I that Brooklyn and Long Island will, by this bridge, be put in direct railway connection with all parts of the country; and this, while no disadvantage to New York City, will to them be a great advantage. This, now, is all that I have time to say in regard to the great East River Bridge. I have grouped the questions together and responded thereto in a few miscellaneous statements, with no attempt to give a detailed history of the bridge. I need not say that the trustees, who have borne the responsibility of this great work for many long years, feel not a little gratified with the fact that; thc general public, whatever may have been thought or said in other days, accepts the result obtained with the expression of universal approval. I have believed from the first that the bridge, when completed and brought into use, would so tell its own story as to answer all objections and secure general commendation. |