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Many of you are familiar with the Brooklyn Bridge, but perhaps you don’t know much about it. After this lecture, you won’t look at this bridge the same way. The history behind the design and construction of this bridge is interesting and full of drama (could make a movie about it).

-Focus on one of the most important structures of the 19th c. - Brooklyn Bridge

-Parallel to the Eiffel Tower (2 of the most important structures of the 19th c.)

-Represents a culmination of what had gone on since the industrial revolution

-Precursor of what is to come

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My goals for the lecture today is for you to know who John Roebling is, a strong name associated with engineering. We’ll learn about some other significant works that he built, in particular the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ll look at this bridge from the three perspectives of the scientific, social and symbolic.

We left off in Great Britain, where we had the Britannia and the Saltash bridges which were railroad bridges dealing with heavy, impact loads. We were dealing with spans on the order of about 500 feet. Now we are going to cross the ocean into America and we’re going to look at three bridges in particular designed by Roebling. Now we are looking at spans o the order of 800 ft to over 1,000 ft (for a sense of scale). This increase in bridge span happens in just over a 30 years. During this time, a bridge of about 1,600 ft (the Brooklyn Bridge) was a huge feat.

At the same time that Stephenson and Brunel were designing their great RR bridges, across the Atlantic, in America, John Roebling was designing suspension bridges over 800 feet in span – eventually his work culminating in the Brooklyn Bridge.During these times, more so than Eiffel (who was a generation younger), bridge engineer’s designs were largely based on an empirical approach (that is, on the basis of field experience)

Remember that last lecture we were talking about Menai, Saltash, and Britannia all in the order of 500 feet.Many parallels can be drawn between Brunel and Roebling (and I will only touch upon a few – the T&B outlines this for you).Personal life: born same year, trained abroad (Brunel in France, Roebling in his native Germany)Established enterprises: Brunel – Great Western Railway; Roebling – wire rope manufacturing co

Important differences:Brunel – designed a variety of structures while promoting vast projects in rail lines, ships, and terminalsRoebling - focus on one type of structure only: suspension bridge

Brunel – Caught in RR frenzy, did not reflect much on his built works nor on the aestheticsRoebling – wrote about his structures from an aesthetic point of view

Image Britannia: Hayden, Martin. The Book of Bridges. p. 78Image Niagara: Steinman, D.B. The Builders of the Bridge. p. 197 or Trachtenberg, Alan. Brooklyn Bridge—Fact and Symbol. p. 86Image Saltash:Image Cincinnati:Image Brooklyn Br.:Image Eiffel Tower:

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From just this photo, you can guess that his personality is very stern and a person of great will. When he was convinced he was right, he wouldn’t budge. He would take ice cold showers and drink charcoal-mixed drinks to stay healthy. He was educated in Berlin and influenced by a famous philosopher named Hegel. The strong-will of Roebling coupled with the inspiration from Hegel allowed Roebling to fully realize his potential. He always dreamed of designing suspension bridges, but it was hard to do so in Germany where it was very bureaucratic. He was frustrated. Dissatisfied with life in Germany, he decided to go to America as a land of opportunity to allow him to become a designer of suspension bridges.

-I will provide a brief bio of Roebling because it is important to develop the individual characters of each engineer that we study – it is important to see that “personalities” design bridges and buildings.

-A Prussian - grew up in middle class family & showed at an early age talent in mathematics - received an engineer’s degree

-close friend and favorite student of philosopher Georg Hegel (pronounced Haygull) who “inspired his students with radical dreams of self-realization, of personal potency… To realize one’s own potential - this was the aspect of Hegel’s system which struck Roebling most forcefully” (by Trachtenberg)

-after graduation took a job as an assistant engineer with the hope of one day designing a new kind of bridge, a suspension bridge, that he had recently seen. “Roebling was greatly attracted to the challenges of this new form”

-But the “excessive bureaucracy” of German society defeated his hopes. He wrote in this diary that nothing could be accomplished without “an army of councilors, ministers, and other officials discussing the matter for 10 years, making long journeys, and writing long reports, while the money spent in all these preliminaries comes to more than the actual accomplishment of the enterprise.”

-Inspired by Hegel, he saw America as a new hope

Image Slide 7: Public Domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_John_Augustus_Roebling.jpg)

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When Roebling first arrived, he becomes a farmer. Along with his brother and other immigrations, Roebling started this community Saxonburg. In 1837 six years later, he stops farming and gets a job with the Pennsylvania State as an engineer.

-Left with his brother and a small band of German immigrants-Landed in Philadelphia on Aug 6.

•founded a German farming community near Pittsburgh (Saxonburg)

•1837 became bored with farming took a job for the PA state as an engineer•Before continue the story, say something more about the personality of JR. (see D. McCollough p.39)•a man to be admired, but from afar.•not exactly friendly/cozy but courteous and polite.•emotionally and physically tough•a believer in hydropathy \hī-dräp-ə-thē\ - if he didn’t feel well, he would sit in scalding tub then jump and wrap himself in ice cold wet bedsheets.•Take a full cold bath every night•Drunk vile concoctions of raw egg, charcoal, warm water, turpentine.•Man of strong will. Once he was convinced that he was right, nothing/no one could discourage him

Image: Source Unknown

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During this time just like in Great Britain, canals were being built and water was the main source of transport. However in America, these were often blocked by mountains. One of his responsibilities was a survey for the Portage Railroad. When the canals were blocked by mountains, the boats were loaded onto railway trucks and hauled over the mountains. There was an engine at the top of the mountain and the rope connecting the engine to the truck was a 6 inch thick hemp rope. The ropes frayed easily, were dangerous, and had a short life therefore expensive. Roebling developed a technique of spinning wires together to form wire rope, which was smaller, stronger, and lighter than hemp rope. He was given this opportunity and his wire rope manufacturing business was born. At first the business was in Saxonburg, then in 1848 he moved it to Trenton.

Image: 1839 drawing of engine house by George Storm (http://exploringoffthebeatenpath.com/Parks/AlleghenyPortageRailroad/)

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Now Roebling has economic security with the idea of wire rope. He now has the freedom to pursue his ambitions which was to be a designer of suspension bridges. One of the first ones he designed was the Delaware Aqueduct. By 1850, he had six suspension bridges to his name. He started to gain a reputation as a suspension bridge designer.

The success of this business provided him economic security and thus freedom to pursue his ambitions.

His career as a bridge builder began after his wire rope business was established.

In 1845 he won a competition for a small aqueduct (7-span) over the Alleghany river in Pittsburgh – a suspension bridge. No longer in existence.

This is an image of the Delaware Aqueduct 1848 (still standing today)

By 1850, Roebling had 6 suspension bridges to his name, each using the rope of his manufacturing business, that was successful in Trenton.

Image: public domain

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These are the three bridges that we are going to focus on today. The Niagara river bridge is a railroad bridge.

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Remember that the Britannia bridge was supposed to be a suspension bridge, but they thought that would be too flimsy so they made the deck more robust, so rigid so that they didn’t need the cables anymore. This one was only 460 ft, but imagine the 821 ft span of the Niagara River Bridge. Roebling made it possible and designed it to have the suspension cables and reinforcement backstays, and also a deep deck. The deck of the Niagara River bridge is more transparent than that in the Britannia bridge.

- Remember the Britannia Bridge, intended to have cables but in the end not needed. Here, the span is much larger so the deep truss AND the cables are needed.

-Niagara = Railroad and roadway bridge.

- Stephenson had spoken against suspension bridges for RR

-Suspension bridge: no other suspension bridge for rail had succeeded because of dynamic loads

-Stays provide wind control

-Niagara River Bridge completed in 1856

-Etching

Image Britannia: Hayden, Martin. The Book of Bridges. p. 78

Image Niagara: Steinman, D.B. The Builders of the Bridge. p. 197 or Trachtenberg, Alan. Brooklyn Bridge—Fact and Symbol. p. 86

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Here you can see the transparency of it. The suspension cables seem to disappear in this image.

Image Niagara: Steinman, D.B. The Builders of the Bridge. p. 197 or Trachtenberg, Alan. Brooklyn Bridge—Fact and Symbol. p. 86

-How it was conceived

-Deep truss but extremely light

-Almost no budget stated that it would need lots of maintenance

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This bridge was not designed by Roebling, but is important in the story of the Niagara River Bridge. It was designed by Charles Ellet, Roebling’s “rival” at the time, but unlike Stephenson and Brunel, they were not friends. For the Wheeling Bridge, there was one particular windy day and the bridge started to dance. Observers said that the deck exceeded the height of the tower and eventually it collapsed entirely. Roebling finds out what happened under these wind conditions, and he sends a note to Trenton to send more rope.

-Roebling had a rival, just like Stephenson and Brunel were rivals, except as far as I can tell Roebling was not friends with his rival as Stephenson and Brunel were.

-His rival Charles Ellet is awarded the project for this RR bridge in Niagara but before the project starts, he gets fired for a reason unrelated to the project.

- Roebling then gets the job and this becomes his first major bridge; it “established Roebling’s reputation as master builder of the suspension bridge”

-While building his bridge, the Wheeling Bridge over the Ohio River built by

Charles Ellet in the 1840s collapsed in 1854 in a wind storm (this ended Ellets career)

- Roebling got report and immediately sent note to Roebling factory in Trenton for more wire strands for his own bridge

-Image: public domain wikipedia

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Roebling uses the extra wire to anchor the deck to the ground underneath he bridge and added additional diagonal cable stays connecting the top of the tower to the deck.

-See wires tying bridge to ground

-It doesn’t fail but no longer pure structural art

-Only suspension bridge in the world that stood up against RR and wind loads

-After 42 years, locomotives became too heavy so the bridge was taken down

-Roebling said that if he had a larger budget he could have made it stronger

-Public domain image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_Road_Suspension_Bridge_Near_Niagara_Falls.jpg

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Here’s another view where you can see those cables designed to prevent the same collapse as suffered the Wheeling Bridge. This is an important engineering decision to allow this railroad bridge to span such a long distance. Elegance may be compromised here in my view, but at the time safety was more important especially for structural phenomenon that were not so well understood. This is also an interesting image because you can see the train passing on top of the deck, and the horses and carriages inside the deck, the two types of loads he needed to design for.

-Another view of it with a train on it

-See cables

-Tube like Britannia but very light

-In his report on the bridge published in Great Britain, noted that the cost was 80,000 pounds and stated, based on the actual cost of Britannia, that the same bridge in Europe would have cost 1 million pounds.

Image: Source Unknown

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This is an important bridge for the North, and you can see union soldiers guarding it during the Civil War and the view of what it looked like to cross the tracks. This is an important bridge for Roebling because it gave him confidence that he could actually design a bridge of over 800 ft span. Not only was he designing suspension bridges, but he was also breaking records and gaining international recognition.

-Union soldiers guarding the bridge during the Civil War because there was concern that it would be destroyed

Image: Source Unknown

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Another record breaking bridge was the Cincinnati Bridge, reaching over 1,000 ft span. The construction took a bit of time because it was constructed during the Civil War. It was originally intended for there to be two spans, but after completing the Niagara River Bridge, Roebling was confident that he could design a bridge to cover the distance with one main span, which would save money. It was the largest spanning bridge in the world when it was complete. You can see here the precursor to the Brooklyn Bridge and Roebling’s style: masonry towers, arches, suspenders and diagonal elements called cable stays. We’re starting to see a style develop which we will see elements of in the Brooklyn bridge.

-Cincinnati Bridge = J. Roebling’s most important contract

-Over the Ohio River

-1057’ span = longest at the time

-See style that Roebling has developed…it is the prototype to the Brooklyn Bridge

-Design began in 1856 but interrupted by Civil War

-Initially, in 1846, had proposed two 788 ft spans, but in 1856 after successful completion of Niagara he revised the design.

-When complete, this was the longest spanning bridge in the world.

- Four months after completion, he submitted plans for the proposed East River Bridge.

Image: Hayden, Martin. The Book of Bridges. p. 114

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You get the sense here for the motifs that are precursors to the Brooklyn Bridge.

-Etching of his design

-Mature style

-Slender truss deck

-Heavy masonry towers

-Cables

-Stays to take the wind (his trademark)

-Roebling understood wind effects well

-Bridge would rise up over half and sink on the other half (S shape) bridge would eventually tear itself apart

-Problem: wind stays prevent certain moment; still ambiguous because of the direction of the stays

-1867 completed bridge and wrote a report where he spoke not only of the technical merits, but also of the ideals of aesthetics and symbolism

Image: Jacobs and Neville, Bridges, Canals and Tunnels. p. 77

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Here is a photo that was taken 30 years ago by David Billington. Notice the heavy truss. We’re going to learn why that was added a few lectures from now.

-Here’s how it looks today

-Has been renamed John A. Roebling Bridge

-2nd Bridge in the world named after the engineer

-You should know the first (Eads Bridge)

-IMAGE: DAVID BILLINGTON

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During the construction of the Cincinnati Bridge, Roebling is in New York on a ferry boat crossing from Manhattan to Brooklyn and there is ice in the path preventing advancement. The thought occurred to him about the idea of building a bridge to connect Manhattan to Brooklyn instead of relying on a ferry. Here is a cover of the New Yorker showing Roebling imagining a bridge crossing the East River which isn’t too far from what actually happened. Now this idea of a bridge crossing the East River was a much larger span than Roebling’s largest spanning bridge up to this time. To say that he was going to design this bridge and convince others that he was going to design this bridge were two different things. He began writing to the New York press and involving himself in politics to convince others that it could be done. After many years, he was successful at convincing the proper politicians and people that he could bridge such a bridge, seeing as we know that the Brooklyn Bridge was eventually built.

-Picture of Roebling, presumably on the docks of Manhattan, dreaming of the Brooklyn Bridge

-Not that far from the truth; that’s what he did

-1852 – JR was on a ferryboat stranded on the East River because chunks of ice clogged the channel… this began his dream of building a bridge to span the East River.

- Wrote letters to the NY press, and eventually, in 1865 a Bridge Company was born

-Problem with the picture: way out of scale because the towers are too high

Image: The New Yorker cover

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We come to this part of the lecture where we talk about the Brooklyn Bridge itself. Before, we’ve seen the context of the engineer behind it. I wanted to include that to emphasize the engineer’s personality in the success and character of these structures. In the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, it was his dogged personality and ambition that was necessary to convince the people that he could build such a long-spanning bridge. We will now examine the Brooklyn Bridge from the three perspectives of the scientific, social and symbolic.

-Look at Brooklyn Bridge from 3 perspectives

-Scientific: form from 2 primary loads

-Cables for vertical, gravity loads

-Stays for wind loads

-Social: politics and economics (related)

-Written about extensively

-corruption

-Symbolic: art world like with the Eiffel Tower

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Here is an etching made by someone who worked with Roebling of what his vision for the Brooklyn Bridge was. He uses this to sell his idea. We see that his vision is actually very close to what was built. He wrote a report to the New York Bridge company which is essentially like the board of trustees about his vision (quote below). His proposal is certainly not modest. We can see the idea of these towers as monuments from their sheer height of this sketch. We’re going to see these towers in the context of the Manhattan landscape, which seemed incredibly tall at that time.

-His “dream” was not too far from the final result

-His rendering (drawn by one of his assistants, Hiedebrand)

-In the preface to his report to the NY Bridge Company in 1867, JR wrote: “The contemplated work, when constructed in accordance with my designs, will not only be the greatest Bridge in existence, but it will be the greatest engineering work of this continent, and of the age. Its most conspicuous features, the great towers, will serve as landmarks to the adjoining cities, and they will be entitled to be ranked as national monuments.”

- Not modest, but history has shown this to be true.

-Even though Roebling died before the bridge was completed, it was Roebling’s vision that “gave the structure its shape and reality”

-“… the bridges reality was multiple… theoretical, physical, economic, and historical considerations. A fusion of these traits was necessary, in Roebling’s mind, if the bridge was to possess the Hegelian trait of actuality…” “’Actuality’, Hegel had written, ‘is the unity of essence and existence, of the inner world of life and the outer world of its appearance.”

-Image: Penn State University Library, CC (Attribution, Noncommecial) https://www.flickr.com/photos/psulibscollections/5492778997

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Here’s the view of what it looks like today, very similar to his vision.

Image: Maria Garlock

-Terminology

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Now we are going to start defining some words. There are a few types of loads involved in the design of suspension bridges. One is dead load, which is the weight of the structure itself. Of course, a structure needs to hold itself up, so there are fixed loads on the structure which is a significant part of the loads that a bridge needs to be designed for. You also need to consider the traffic: the cars, the people, the carriages and the railroads. This is a transient load, a moving load. This is not a permanent load, which we call the live load. The dead load will always be with the structure, but the live loads can change. We also need to consider wind loads which are also live loads, and they are dynamic. We consider them as horizontal loads as a force pushing against the deck of the bridge. We’ll revisit this later.

-Scientific

-1600’ main span = longest

-Cable carries permanent load

-Weight: not exact, make estimate

-Truss: stiffens deck to carry load and equally distribute loads to cables

-Stays control wind load

-Look at form and examine why it is this form

-photo: Maria Garlock

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These loads need to carried by the structure, which can be categorized into different structural systems. For a bridge, you have a deck truss which are these vertical elements on the edge of the deck which is where you have those live loads. The deck picks up the live loads, which is carried through the suspenders and the suspenders are picked up by the main cable, and the loads are then transferred to the tower which brings the loads down to the foundations/ground. That is the load path of how the bridge brings the loads to the foundations. The stays (the diagonal elements) are there to control deformations by wind as observed in the Wheeling bridge. This is the basic anatomy of the suspension bridge.

-Scientific

-1600’ main span = longest

-Cable carries permanent load

-Weight: not exact, make estimate

-Truss: stiffens deck to carry load and equally distribute loads to cables

-Stays control wind load

-Look at form and examine why it is this form

A few years ago I was introduced to a show called ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy.’ He taught about structures, and one quote that stuck out to me was that “large structures are a big tension and compression party.” This is true—every member you see in a structure is either in tension or compression or even both (bending). Every single element is either being squeezed, stretched or both.

Https://www.teachengineering.org/collection/cub_/lessons/cub_images/cub_brid_lesson01_figure5.jpg

http://www.geoscan.ca/uploads/3/5/6/7/3567727/692866_orig.jpg

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Now I want you to think about the parts of the Brooklyn bridge and think about what elements are in tension (stretched) and which are in compression (squeezed).

use a separate laptop or smartphone to see responses and share verbally the response to the class.

Correct = A

Image: Aatish Bhatia

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Identify if the element is in compression (C) or tension (T)

https://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/4T7TcRlXGbq5duF

ANSWER:

Tower - compression

Cable & Suspender - tension

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Now that we’ve looked at the scientific aspects, let’s examine the social aspect. We must introduce Washington Roebling, John Roebling’s son. He was trained as an engineer at RPI and was a Colonel in the Civil War. He worked with his father on the Cincinnati bridge. He took over the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. This is where the ‘drama’ starts. His father John before construction was surveying the East River. He was standing on one side of the water and his colleague was on the other side, and sending signals to each other to assess the site to figure out where the bridge would be. He was standing on one of the dock piles, and during this process, a ferry docked, squeezing all of the piles of the dock together, crushing his toes. Normally this wouldn’t kill someone, but he wouldn’t receive regular medical attention. He tried to use water to heal himself. Two weeks later, he died of lockjaw. Here’s this man John Roebling with a vision and dies because his toes get crushed. Fortunately, Washington Roebling was trained as an engineer and was well qualified to continue the construction. The people of the bridge company appointed Washington Roebling as the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge before construction began.

Image: McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. p. 230

-Studied at RPI and worked with his dad well educated

-After retirement as Colonel from Civil War, in 1864 he took charge of the Cincinnati Br while his father worked on plans for the Brooklyn Bridge

-In 1869, while surveying, JOHN Roebling was standing on the piles of dock, when saw the ferry coming he stepped back onto a string piece (beam), but there must have been a knot in one of the piles or something because as the ferry docked and pushed back the piles, his toes got crushed.

- got lockjaw dead in 2 weeks

-(Lockjaw = tetanus = infection that results in muscle spasms in jaw and elsewhere in the body)

-His son, Washington Roebling, takes over the project

-John was a structural artist, but Washington was not. He was a great builder.

-WR was well prepared to handle what we call the scientific aspect of the project (the engineering), but he was not prepared for the social part, the politics and corruption. This social aspect is what nearly killed him.

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To understand the social story, the New York City politics are a crucial element to understand. At the time, it was quite corrupt. There was Tammany Hall with a leader known as Boss Tweed, which essentially controlled New York City politics by bribing politicians. There was a lot of corruption in the politics, and building a bridge between two major cities required the cooperation of the major political leaders of the two cities. There was a lot of corruption involved in the construction of the Brooklyn bridge as well. Another social aspect is the transformation of the two communities of Brooklyn and New York as well.

Image: McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. p. 230

-Social:

-Politics and NYC are the best example of urban corruption: Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall (Dem Pty Political machine)

-To get a bridge built there were not strict rules except that you had to get political figures to back it up

-How to get political figures to agree to get bridge built? Boss Tweed essentially bribed politicians

-Tweed essentially controlled NYC politics through bribes

-Boss Tweed continued to siphon off money dedicated to the bridge in order to keep things straight with the political world in NYC

-Boss Tweed: fled country, caught abroad, and spent the rest of his time in jail

-Large size is symbolic of size of corruption

-Building: within reasonable budget and timeframe

-All within the hands of Washington R.

-Interesting story we’ll tell in a few minutes

-Communities

-NYC was most populated city and Brooklyn (separate city) was 3rd

most populated in country

-Integration of NYC by bridge

-Between civil center of Brooklyn and NYC

-A few years later, politically connected as well

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But how do you build the Brooklyn Bridge? One of the most fascinating parts of the construction process was the construction of the tower and the underground components, the parts you can’t see of the tower. What we see here are people standing on the base, or foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge tower. It was partly hollowed out on the inside.

Image: Jacobs and Neville, Bridges, Canals and Tunnels. p. 85

-Construction using compressed air caissons, like james Eads was doing for the Eads Bridge at about the same time.

-Caisson = watertight structure used to build foundations at the bridge pier.

-Compressed air caissons made of wood.-Then send people down there to clean muck out-Stones piled on to make piers

-Method developed in Europe that Eads and Roebling were both familiar with (John sent his son Washington to Europe to learn about this).-Water would crush caissons in it if the air inside were not compressed

-Pressure (hydrostatic) proportional to depth needed to pump air to resist pressure-Need to bring people up slowly to avoid getting bends (called then

caisson disease)-Describe the medical condition-Some died-Eads and his doctor discovered this solution but did not communicate to Roebling (building the Brooklyn Bridge) since they were rivals

-Roebling and Eads did not get along so Roebling never knew that Eads discovered how to the solve the problem of bends (come up slowly)

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The wooden structure is first pushed out and floated out. The dashed line is where the structure is hollowed.

Image: Source Unknown (Children’s Book)

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When it is in the right position, the wooden structure is sunk. People then also go under and dig out the earth from below until they reach bedrock. They dig with shovels and dump the earth into the clam buckets which then take the material up and out. In the meantime, all of the heavy masonry is loaded on top of the wood to sink the caisson (foundation) lower and lower. Remember that with deep waters, there are deep water pressures. What this process requires is compressed air inside to push out that pressure from the water to allow the men to work.

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Here’s a cross-section view. In yellow is that wooden structure mentioned earlier. This is really not a nice place to work, the sounds are loud, it’s dark, and it was hot. It was quite a hellish environment to be working.

Image: Harper’s Weekly December 17, 1870

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They reached bedroom at 44.5 ft and in New York they were not reaching the bedroom at the same depth. Workers involved in the New York side started getting sick and several would die from the work. No one understood well what was going on. This is now understood as a medical condition known as Caisson’s disease. Finally, when it got to 78 ft, they didn’t reach bedrock but reached stiff enough soil which Roebling made the call to stop, trusting that the soil was strong enough to hold the caissons which were filled with concrete after they were placed. Roebling was actually one of those afflicted with Caisson’s disease, being the chief engineer of the project he had the responsibility of being onsite and monitoring the construction. He was paralyzed from the disease, and confined to his room.

-Brooklyn caisson = 44.5 ft depth (bedrock)

-NY caisson – stopped at 78.6 ft (no bedrock, sand and gravel). A tough call for Washington b/c many men started to get and sometimes die of caissons disease… including Washington.

-Fire in the Brooklyn caisson. Washington spent a lot of time there. It was after this event that he started to show signs of the bends.

-By the Fall of 1872, was paralyzed, and was confined to his room instead of being down there with men for the rest of the construction

-Image: McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. p. 423

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He needed someone to be onsite to be his eyes and his ears, his assistance. That assistant was his wife, Emily Roebling. Consider that this was the 1800s, and the thought of a woman working on a construction site giving orders to men was really unheard of at the time. It took a whole lot of courage for Emily to do this. She would receive advice and knowledge from Washington, go onsite and return with what is happening onsite. Eventually workers would seek directly advice from Emily instead of Washington, which showed her competence at learning quickly and being a responsible leader.

Image: McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. p. 36

-Washington’s wife Emily took over

-First example of a woman taking on a huge engineering project and carrying it out to completion

-Daughter of an engineer; her brother was a distinguished engineering

-In another era should would have been an engineer

-Showed up on site with orders from Washington Roebling

-Directed construction

-Washington still had control over basic aspects, but many things had

to be decided in the field, on the site, by Emily

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Here is an image of the construction, likely the New York side tower.

Image: Jacobs and Neville, Bridges, Canals and Tunnels. p. 88

- Tower was made of heavy masonry to sink the caissons

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Here are the dates that the towers were completed. This is the New York tower and see Manhattan—really flat. The towers were indeed huge monuments at the time.

-In 1876, the NYC side of the tower was completed

-image public domain

-https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panoramic_view_of_Manhattan_by_Joshua_Beal,_1876.jpg

-Panorama by Joshua Beal 1876

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Once the towers were complete, the next step were to install the cables. The cables run from an anchor, through the tops of the towers to the next anchor. To build that cable, one must built a walkway in order to have space under the cable to built it. So the walkway was built, which was interestingly open to the public.

Image: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Brooklyn-Bridge

-Temporary walkway in preparation for spanning cables

-Steel cables; previously Roebling had used iron wire

People then started fainting, and then started fainting so it was then closed off to the public.

Image: bridgeman education

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Now we start the story of the laying of the wires. There was a bid that went out for who would provide the wires for the Brooklyn Bridge. Recall that Roebling was famous for the best quality wire rope, and it would make sense that the Roebling company would receive the bid for the job.

Image: http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2595997.1460382240!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_635/brooklyn-bridge-construction-1878.jpg (http://latestviralnews.com/a-look-at-the-history-of-new-york-citys-tunnels-and-bridges/)

-Last wire goes across on Oct 15, 1878

-Laying the cables was not without drama…

-Only company that could produce the cables reliably was the Roebling Co. in Trenton

-Open bid and Roebling Co. was not only higher quality but also less expensive

-However, one of the leading members of the commission (like the board of trustees of the bridge) objected to it as a conflict of interest (Roebling is the chief engineer, and he will get part of the profit, and

therefore the Roebling Co should be barred from bidding on this)

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One man contested, Abram Hewitt. He said that this was a conflict of interest. The Roebling’s were getting a profit from their own constructions. Washington ended up selling the stock of his company, but Hewitt was still unsatisfied. In the end, Hewitt won and the contract went to some contractor who was known for being corrupt and was more expensive than the Roebling company. We see here again the complications with the politics of New York. Even more serious was that this contractor was working on another project, and would send defective wire from that project for use in the Brooklyn Bridge. By the time that Washington found out about this, it was too late and it was already embedded as part of the cable. Washington ended up adding more wire to ensure that the bridge is safe.

Image Abram: McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. p. 230

-Here is the man that protested: Abram Hewitt

-Roebling sold his stock in the company

-Hewitt not satisfied and contract for wire given to J. Lloyd Haigh, another contractor who was higher priced and had a terrible reputation for corruption

-Later discovered that Hewitt who had spoken all about ethics was getting a

kickback from the contractor who did get the commission

-Read a brief sentence of Washington Roebling’s report: “When a demagogue wants to effect an object he always raises the cry of public virtue, and under the cover of the smoke he raises, slips in himself. It is on such low and crafty tricks that the honor of a Hewitt rests”

-Hewitt later becomes Mayor of NY and this all comes out later, but Roebling knew about it right away

-This company put in defective wire which had been rejected, but they just turned the truck right around and put it in the bridge

-When Roebling found out, the question was what to do because it was already woven into the fabric of the cables

-He just put in more wire

-The safety factor was very high and it still is

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This is downtown Manhattan and here is the Brooklyn Bridge. The towers were huge and dominated the skyline when it was complete.

Image: Source Unknown

-Dominated the skyline of the city; just about the tallest structure in the city

-Only thing taller was Trinity Church on Wall Street (actually not a very big building)

It opened on May 24th 1993, and there was a special opening at midpoint inviting several thousand to cross the bridge before it was opened to the public.

Image: Public Domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_Invitation_to_the_Opening_of_the_Brooklyn_Bridge.jpg)

7,000 invitations given to select citizens to cross the bridge before it was officially opened to the public

Opened at midnight.

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Here’s an image of that opening and the people walking over it.

Image: Trachenberg, Brooklyn Bridge—Fact and Symbol. pg. 86

7,000 invitations given to select citizens to cross the bridge before it was officially opened to the public

Opened at midnight.

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Here are some fireworks in 1883 when it opened. It was a huge celebration, and a national event.

- Image: Bridgeman education

Fireworks when it was opened on May 24, 1883

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Here was the president at the time crossing over that bridge.

Image: http://www.mapsites.net/gotham01/webpages/gabbyl/opening.htm

-President Chester A. Arthur walking across the bridge

-Some people say it’s the finest thing he did in his administration (not true of course)

-Opening of the bridge was a national event

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Emily was also there to cross the bridge.

Image Emily: McCullough, David. The Great Bridge. p. 36

-Emily Roebling was present, but not Washington

-Show her even bigger here to show the importance that she played

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How is this bridge being used today?

Image: Source Unknown

-Move to 2nd stage of the life of the bridge: bridge in use

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Here’s an image of the original intention, and it generally is the same today. What’s interesting is the elevated walkway. This was meant to stimulate people and artists as they crossed across the bridge.

Image: A Complete History of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, Samuel W Green, 1883

-Cross-section of the original design of John A. Roebling

-Carriages with horses

-Steam driven rapid transit

-Central elevated walkway

-Important because it gave an opportunity for people to get beautiful views

-Something you must do in your lifetime

-Began to see the Brooklyn Bridge in the same way as the Eiffel Tower

-Image: NY and Brooklyn Bridge. Compiled by S W Green. Google book, 1883

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-Soon after it opened… an image of people on the walkway…

-Image: Museum of City of New York

Alternative Image Source: http://schimmelblog.com/?p=497

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Today, the people dress different, and the manhattan skyline is different, but the bridge is the same.

Photo: Maria Garlock

This clip is along that theme that the bridge remains the same although everything around that bridge changed overtime.

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It was truly a miracle for its time. If you get a chance to walk across it, you can put your hands on the suspenders which carry a tremendous amount of load. The details are visible as well.

Photo: Maria Garlock

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-This view is stimulating in the same way as the Eiffel Tower to painters and poets

-See plaque on tower recognizing John and Washington Roebling, but no mention of Emily!

-Photo: Maria Garlock

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But wait… if you turn the corner…Emily is also recognized for her work.

Tablet erected in 1931 by the Brooklyn Engineers Club

Photo: Maria Garlock

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And I love this last line specifically recognizing Emily.

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1875, the year the tower was complete

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David Billington took this picture a while back. It seems impossible to get the same shot today—it is now always so crowded with bicycles and pedestrians.

-Group having lunch

-It is a park like the Eiffel Tower

-Made for people to enjoy = Roebling’s idea

-Photo: David Billington

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People also loved climbing the cables, which is no longer allowed today.

Image: Photo by Eugene de Salignac via Wikipedia

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This is a picture from World Trade Center 7. Now the bridge is a bit dwarfed, and people may have forgotten the significance behind such a momentous bridge at the time.

View from new WTC7

Size Is dwarfed by the tall buildings of Manhattan, but it is still a significant landmark and structure for NYC

photo: Maria Garlock

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These views of the Brooklyn Bridge also stimulated many artists.

-In a boat

-These views stimulate artists

-First one that we will look at is John Marin, a painter, stimulated by city of NY Brooklyn Br, and the state of Maine where he was from

-photo: Maria Garlock

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Marin was an American modernist artist of the early 1900s. He was known for his abstract landscapes and watercolors. Marin sees the Brooklyn Bridge as “dancing”.

Image: Public Domain (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Marin_by_Alfred_Stieglitz,_1922.jpg)

-Wants structure to be visible/seen: see what is holding the forces, what is resisting the wind

-Marin sees it as a celebration, dancing

-Interests in NYC and Maine (where he was from)

-Became fascinated with the Brooklyn Bridge

-image Wikipedia commons: public domain

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Here are some paintings by Marin showing this idea of “movement.”

-Painting/drawing by John Marin from same view almost

-Interests in NYC and Maine (where he was from)

-Became fascinated with the Brooklyn Bridge

-This is almost a standard like view, but he was transformed once he got on the bridge

-Wikipedia commons: public domain

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The walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge stimulated many paintings. At first, some saw the monumental towers as intrusive, but then the people began to see it in a different light (much like Delaunay saw the Eiffel Tower)

-Image: Bridgeman education

Here are some more examples of paintings.

Image: Bridgeman education

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Marin sees it as a dance, and David Billington’s son is also caught dancing on the bridge.

-Photo David Billington

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This vision of walking through and seeing the city through these cables stimulate pictures by Joseph Stella.

-Photo David Billington

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Joseph Stella was an Italian born American painter

-Photo David Billington

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The views of the Brooklyn Bridge stimulated artists, from the vertical cables holding gravity loads up to the diagonal cables preventing it from literally dancing in the wind.

-Image: wikipedia commons, public domain

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-Stella’s first picture like this, where different aspects of the bridge represent different emotions.

-Sees 3 components of the city in a Dante-esque way

-Subway = inferno

-Streets/deck = purgatory

-Cables = paradise

-Stella actually wrote about it in an essay

-Bridge expresses these emotions

-Image: Wikimedia commons, public domain

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Pattern of shapes emerge in the paintings, visual patterns from webs of steel inspired the geometries in the artwork.

- Image: Wikimedia commons, public domain

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Stella sees city through the structure. He created a set of 5 paintings called NY Interpreted. This is one of that sequence called Skyscrapers. They carry the theme of seeing city through bridge, culture through engineering.

Image: Bauer, John I. HJ. Joseph Stella. plate VIII

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Here is another painting by Stella depicting New York city through the vertical suspenders. The central walkway is always included.

Image: Bauer, John I. HJ. Joseph Stella. 1971.

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Along the line of art that the bridge inspired, Hart Crane was a controversial poet who wrote “The Bridge,” which was essentially a response to “The Wasteland” by T.S. Elliot. An interpretation of “The Bridge” was “Brooklyn Bridge lay at the end of the poet’s journey, the pledge of a ‘cognizance’ that would explain and redeem history. To reach the bridge, to attain its understanding, the poet suffered the travail of hell. But he emerges unscathed, and ascends the span…. The entire action implies a steady optimism that no matter how bad history may be, the bridge will reward the struggle richly.”

Image: Unterecker, John. Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane. p. 358

-Now turn to poetry

-1920s one of the most famous poets, T.S. Elliot, wrote “The Wasteland,” a very depressing poem

-Hart Crane, a controversial poet, responded with “The Bridge,” a more optimistic and lyrical view

-Starts out with “To Brooklyn Bridge”

- Alan Trachtenberg’s interpretation of “The Bridge” (p. 152)

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-(Read an excerpt from “The Bridge”- the beginning and end in “The Subway”)

-“How many dawns chill…” “… and we see night lifted in thinearms”

-Obvious that this poem was a response to a depressing view of the country

-He didn’t realize until after he finished it that he wrote it from the very same room and looking through the same window as Washington Roebling did as he watched the bridge come into being for 13 years

Frank Sinatra also sang a song about the bridge.

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-May 24, 1983 – Centennial celebration of the bridge

-Millions of people lined the East River to celebrate the centennial

- Most didn’t know the history of the bridge or John Roebling, but they knew that it was important

-Lining East River to see centennial celebration

-Most probably didn’t know much about Roebling and the bridge but knew it was a great bridge

-Knew something symbolic and important was being celebrated

Images: David P. Billington

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-Bridge remains this kinds of symbol and permanent work

-It was a Roebling family effort (John, Washington, and Emily) that made the bridge a reality. But it was John Roebling’s vision, dream, and perseverance that made it a technical AND symbolic success.