 24 May 1954 |
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BROOKLYN BRIDGE IS AN AERIAL FLIGHT OVER NEW YORK'S EAST RIVER, HELD BY STEEL GOSSAMERS SLUNG BETWEEN TREMENDOUS STONE GOTHIC TOWERS. HERE THE 1,595-FOOT-LONG SPAN IS SEEN AT DUSK FROM THE BROOKLYN SIDE AGAINST THE BRILLIANTLY LIGHTED TOWERS OF DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN BROOKLYN BRIDGE - 71 YEARS YOUNG The Roeblings' engineering masterpiece, a marvel of its age, is now even better than new after four years of refurbishing |
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This month Brooklyn Bridge, the oldest and - many think - the handsomest of the six big spans linking Manhattan Island with the rest of the U.S., was re-opened after four years of partial close-down. In that time $7 million was spent to refurbish the bridge, remove trolley tracks, increase auto lanes from four to six (picture at right) and revamp trusses. Happily, for those who venerate the 71-year old bridge as a cluster-point for history, poetry and Americana, its exterior appearance, unchanged since its opening, is unchanged still. Bridges are elemental things, like wheels, blades and bricks - simple, obvious, yet of undying importance. To most people who cross them they are merely a means to an end. But to an infinitely smaller, rarer group bridges are esthetic concepts that have miraculously materialized in steel and stone. |
 NOW BRIDGE HAS NEW STRUTS OVER ROADWAY, STRONGER LIGHTS IN OLD FIXTURES |
 STERN AND HUMORLESS, JOHN ROEBLING LOVED NOTHING SO MUCH AS ENGINEERING  PARALYZED BUILDER sits in view of bridge, beside binoculars through which he watched it grow.  MODERN RENOVATOR who drew the plans for the recent changes is David Steinman, here standing on its strands. He is one of the world's great bridgebuilders, with 300 spans on five continents. |
These are the bridgebuilders, a dedicated lot. Such a one was John A. Roebling. A German-born civil engineer who immigrated to America in 1831, Roebling helped found a colony in Pennsylvania, saw the need for an iron rope and began to make it. He not only invented iron (later steel) cable, but he epochally incorporated it into the suspension bridge by developing a technique for weaving wire back and forth from shore to shore without a break, first in strands and ultimately into cables. Bridgebuilding became his life work and 1,595-foot Brooklyn Bridge his epitaph. For one day in 1869, while he was surveying its site, a ferry crushed his foot and 16 days later he died at 63. But foresighted Roebling had planned properly, even to a successor who went on - as the pictures on the following pages relate - to finish the engineering masterpiece. WORK WAS DIRECTED BY REMOTE WATCHER The month after John Roebling died, his son, Washington Roebling, 32, Civil War veteran and graduate-engineer, assumed his father's duties. Work on the bridge began in January 1870. It proceeded well although as the caissons ate into the river's bed, workmen died of the then mysterious "bends," or caisson disease. Stanch Roebling spent more time in the caissons than anyone. In 1872 he too was stricken, rallied and returned to be stricken again - terribly. He was paralyzed, his sight, hearing and speech affected, his nervous system reduced to a life-long torment. From his home in Brooklyn (above) he continued directing the work and his magnificent wife Emily studied engineering so she could make inspections - and transmit his orders to job engineers. |
 SLENDER SWAYING FOOTBRIDGE STRUNG FOR WORKMEN WAS THE VERY FIRST BEIDGE TO BROOKLYN. IT ATTRACTED AMATEUR DAREDEVILS WHO OFTEN GOT HALF WAY OVER, THEN COLLAPSED IN PANIC |
 IN 1873 the half-built towers (foreground and extreme right) afforded a superb view of New York Harbor. But many said neither they nor mere steel cable would ever support the bridge's 13,800 tons.  BY 1875 the granite towers stood completed on the enormous wooden caissons (sone 170 feet long) which astonishingly are still their foundations, the wood preserved indefinitely by immersion. |
 DEMOLITION of buildings (foreground) went on in 1877 to make room for the Manhattan approach. A former home of George and Martha Washington had stood where the cable anchoreage is being built.  SUSPENDERS - the ropes that hang from the cables and support the roadway - were being installed by 1879, just two years after the first wire for the first of four cables was drawn across the river. |
 THE PRESIDENT, Chester A. Arthur, and New York Governor Grover Cleveland led first walk over, Fort and ship cannon fired, crowds screamed. |
 TORCHES, BON FIRES AND ROCKETS lit up the sky on that wildly celebrative night. So on the bridge itself did 80 big lamps that were miraculously operated by electricity. Rooftops, fire escapes were jammed. One onlooker at the bridge's opening was a 5-month-old baby named Fiorello H. LaGuardia. |
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IT WAS OPENED WITH FIREWORKS AND HAS LIVED ON IN MELODRAMA
Thirteen years, $15 million and 20 workmen's lives later the great bridge was opened on May 24, 1883. After the inaugural tour (above, left), President Arthur and entourage marched to Roebling's home to honor him. That night the bridge was opened to the public at tolls (long discontinued) of 1 cent for humans, 2 cents for sheep. Roebling lived on - in pain - until 1926. The bridge, say engineers, is good for at least two centuries more.  THE GREAT PANIC on the bridge took place six days after opening. It had been thronged since the first night when an amateur miler sprinted over to be the first toll=payer and 250,000 more walked across in the first 24 hours. But many had deep misgivings about the structure's strength. On May 30 when someone suddenly screamed, panic ensued. The cry spread that the bridge was falling. Twelve were trampled to death, 40 injured. Here victims are being removed.  THE FIRST LEAP off the bridge was made by Robert E. Odlum, a swimming teacher, in natty initialed costume, whose announced intention attracted ferry-boat load of spectators. He died of internal injuries. Later Steve Brodie claimed to have made the 135-foot leap on July 23, 1886 and indeed was picked up in the water alive, going on to immortality and a profitable Bowery saloon business. But no disinterested witness ever saw Brodie jump and he probably never did. |