Friend of the Site Thursday

Our Friend Eli wrote this piece.

The Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by Eli

The years 1870-1883 was not the most exciting era in U.S. history. The one exception, however, was the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. This bridge set the standard for bridge engineering and aesthetic around the world, and all under one of the most corrupt city governments this country has ever seen. One could barely build a sturdy dog-house in New York City without paying massive fees for permits and shoddy materials from corrupt contractors.[1] The story of the the Brooklyn Bridge is a beautiful, tragic and fascinating tale of individual heroism, popular resistance, and political intrigue. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to tell it tonight. So instead I’ll tell one little, amazing piece of the story: the sinking of the piers.

Even today, the piers are imposing structures, but in 1876 when both towers were completed, they dwarfed every structure around them. The second tallest building, the Trinity Chapel barely rose to half the height of the two towers.[2]

So how do you dig out 45 feet of riverbed while 70 feet underwater with neither electricity[3] nor steam shovel?!!![4] Construct an enormous box out of wood and steel (but mainly wood), pump it full of compressed air fill it full of men with shovels, and sink it to the bottom of the river, where men will dig and set small dynamite charges into bedrock so that slowly, inch by inch, the wood box sinks into the ground. When the box is at the requisite depth, you’ll get the men out (except for the 20 who died from the bends…they came out earlier) and fill it with concrete, and that will be the foundation to one your two towers.

This system of digging out river bottoms by submerging men with shovels in air-compressed boxes was not exactly new technology in 1873.[5] But it had never been done on this scale before and few believed it could be. Washington Roebling, head engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, and perhaps one of the most brilliant figures in U.S. history, believed different. Roebling commissioned a New York shipbuilder to build him two enormous boxes (known as caissons). They were to be 168 feet x 102 feet and 21 feet high. The walls were shaped like a V: nine feet thick where they met the ceiling and tapering down to an 8 inch digging wedge. The shipbuilder was so skeptical of the plan, that they he demanded to be paid in advance.[6]

On May 3, 1870, the first caisson took off from its dock and was pulled by eight tug boats into position near the Brooklyn shore. Layer upon layer of stone was added to the top of the caisson until it had settled into the bottom of the east river. Work in the caisson was hard, dangerous and dirty.[7] At one point, fire broke out in the Brooklyn caisson’s roof. Had this fire continued much longer, 35,000 tons of stone on top would have come crashing down.

So when you’re strolling with your date en route to your nouveau-yuppie condo in DUMBO, make sure you give workers some dap.

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[1] This was unfortunate because most people lived in dog houses

[2] Upon completion of the piers, the builder of Trinity Chapel felt inadequate

[3] didn’t exist yet…well, it did, but wasn’t harnessed…you know what I mean.

[4] A new technology prone to exploding

[5] How do you think they built Atlantis?

[6] The modern usage of “Bling” originates from Roebling’s ability to pay the ship builders with cubic zirconium

[7] That’s what she said