Brooklyn Bridge: The Bridge which has Forever Linked New York City and Brooklyn
24. May 1883 the bridge was opened for the first time, thus linking the great cities of Brooklyn and New York. Fifteen years later the town of Brooklyn was officially merged with New York, the Staten island and several farming cities, of which great New York now consists. The impressive Brooklyn Bridge is considered to be miracle of engineering.
For Roebling the farming dream fortunately did not work out
The bridge is the work of pioneer of suspension bridges on steel constructions, John August Roebling. He came from Germany and was born in 1806. He studied industrial engineering in Berlin and when he was 25 years old, left for Pennsylvania, where he wanted to settle down as a farmer. But fate took him to Harrisburg, where he began to work as a civil engineer.
The best designer of suspension bridges
Roebling founded a successful plant for cables and soon has earned a reputation for the best designer of suspension bridges which were at that time being constructed, but often was unable to resist strong wind or heavy loads. Roebling made a major breakthrough in technology; on both sides of the bridge road he added a network of links which made the bridge stable. Using this method he successfully bridged the Niagara Falls and the river Ohio in Cincinnati.
How vital his decision not to settle down, farming, became for the city of New York, he has never found out. He died of tetanus, as a consequence of his personal injury when he cut himself on a ship on the East River. The function of head engineer was assumed by his 32-year old son, Washington A. Roebling.
A bridge tested by 21 elephants
The construction of the bridge lasted for 14 years, having been worked on by 600 men, of which 20 died in the construction; the cost was $15 million, which would in today´s terms represent the sum of around $320 million. In 1884, 21 elephants walked over the bridge to prove that it is sufficiently stable and will withstand the burden. At that time it was the first steel suspension bridge that could boast of the longest span in the world: 1,600 meters from one tower to the other.
With its unprecedented length and two spectacular towers the bridge was called the eighth world wonder and for many years to come it was the tallest building in the whole of the western hemisphere.
