Brooklyn Bridge
1883 · Steel Wire Suspension Bridge · Work 46 of 1,871
The Brooklyn Bridge with its granite towers pierced by twin pointed arches, four steel cables and the fan of diagonal stays, the timber promenade raised above the carriageways.
- What it was used for
- A suspension bridge over the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, then still two separate cities. It replaced the ferries, which failed in winter ice. Opened on 24 May 1883, it carried pedestrians, carriages and a cable railway; on the first day 1,800 vehicles and 150,300 people crossed. Main span 486.3 m, cost 15.5 million dollars, an estimated 27 men killed over the fourteen years of construction. Tolls were abolished in 1911.
- What was new
- According to the ASCE this was the first use of galvanized steel wire in cable construction - over 5,000 wires per cable, each cable nearly 16 inches across. The work also showed a limit: the Manhattan caisson was stopped at 23.9 m before reaching bedrock because caisson disease was striking the men; that foundation stands on sand. The wire contractor J. Lloyd Haigh supplied substandard material - of eighty rings tested, five met the specification. The wire already built in could not be removed; Washington Roebling compensated with 150 extra wires per cable.