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From our recording studio in Brooklyn, we make audio that celebrates human creativity, history and the spaces we live to learn about.

With news focused on space travel to distant galaxies, we often take for granted the engineering marvels right in front of our own eyes. Now an iconic feature of the NYC skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge was once thought of as impossible. 

Meet the men, and woman, that advanced the science of bridge building by constructing this work of “Practical Grandeur”, and hear how the bridge served as the backdrop for the Black Lives Matter Movement.

This walk was created in the summer of 2020.

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Brooklyn Bridge

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New York

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“It is by all odds the loftiest of cities. It even managed to reach the highest point in the sky at the lowest moment of the depression.”
― E.B. White

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There’s couple of commemorative stones set into the ground just in front of the flowers. Hang out near those for just a minute, and I’ll tell you when to start walking.

You’re standing at the base of an engineering marvel, one that was 14 years and almost $400 million modern dollars in the making. 

A little after 1:30 in the afternoon on May 24, 1883- a Thursday to be precise- clamoring cheers of hundreds upon hundreds of New Yorkers filled the plaza around you on the Brooklyn Bridge’s opening day. American flags lined the eaves along all streets that led to the water. Businesses were closed early, and schools were let out. Across the river the Mayor of Brooklyn had declared the day a holiday- “The People’s Day,” and New Yorkers followed suit in spirit. 

It wasn’t just residents of the two boroughs who joined in on the celebrations. As many as 50,000 out-of-towners came into the city via train, and there is no telling how many more came by boat, or even by vegetable cart from surrounding farm towns. The ferries on the river were packed, with many choosing to stay on board as the boats went back and forth across the river, hoping to keep their prime view of the festivities, killing time until the most elaborate fireworks show the city had ever seen kicked off atop the bridge.

Underscoring the importance of the bridge’s opening, the President of the United States, Chester A. Arthur, and Grover Cleveland (at the time the newly-elected governor of New York) had just arrived across the street at City Hall Park after parading down from the Fifth Avenue Hotel. They stood roughly where you are now to soak in the fanfare.

The band of the “Dandy” Seventh Regiment trumpeted “Hail to the Chief” as President Arthur whipped his beaver hat about, sparking roars from the crowd with every wave. After ten minutes of reveling in the city-wide good will, the party set off on foot to do what they’d come here to do- to lead the inaugural procession across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Let’s follow in their footsteps. Head to the right around the flower bed, and start your way across the bridge. This walk will automatically play audio segments based on your location, so you can just keep walking at a comfortable pace across the bridge. As you walk, be sure to keep to the right, out of the way of the bicyclists speeding by to the left.


Brooklyn

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The People's Day

Tour Item

1. BB - Subway Stop

Now an iconic feature of the New York City skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge was once thought of as impossible- a fool’s errand. The idea of any bridge spanning the East River seemed beyond the pale for centuries’ worth of New Yorkers, though designs for such a bridge stretched back to the turn of the 19th century.

Ferries had been running across the river since the early 1800s, but fears of being stranded should the river freeze solid, or overcrowded ferry slips during commutes, made the idea of a bridge all the more popular.

In 1867, the state legislature in Albany decided it’d been long enough, and authorized the chartering of a private company to design and construct a bridge over the East River (albeit with no mention of what type or how).

Making this happen would prove to be a herculean feat in more than just engineering. The bridge would need to cross the navigable waters of the East River- which isn’t a river at all, but a tidal strait, with access to both Long Island Sound and the Upper Bay. 

This meant the East River was an eternally crowded waterway. The potential impact on maritime traffic meant final say over the project fell to US Congress (and all the red tape that accompanied it). The politics, negotiations, and reassurances required to get all parties on board took about two years, and continued throughout construction. 

The man for the job was John A. Roebling, a titan of the engineering field. He’d been responsible for a few suspension bridges around the country, and was known for his work with the technique. But the East River Bridge, as he called it, would be his largest undertaking by far. 

Born in Saxony, Germany, Roebling studied hydraulics and bridge construction, but also philosophy, under Hegel himself. Legend has it that Hegel “avowed that John Roebling was his favorite pupil.” John Roebling made his way to America at the age of 24, determined to become the finest farmer the nation had ever seen. But, his analytical mind soon grew weary of the mundanity of farm life, and he returned to engineering. 

John A. Roebling was a no-nonsense man with an unparalleled work ethic. His proposal for the Brooklyn Bridge- a 14,000 word plan complete with soundings, drawings, and budget estimates-took him only three months to finish. He was also a man with the utmost conviction in his own personal beliefs. 

He was a strong believer in the practice of hydropathy, the use of water as therapy. Roebling professed that “a wet bandage around the neck every night, for years, will prevent colds.” and “a full cold bath every day is indispensable.” Fitting that his life’s work would be to allow millions to transcend the water boundary ahead of you now.

Roebling’s spiritual side came to light most poignantly in 1867, the winter after he’d finished the designs for the Brooklyn Bridge. Late one Saturday night, Roebling’s nephew heard three knocks ring out from beneath the chair he sat on. After recovering from the fright and fetching his cousin, they began asking questions, realizing that three knocks meant yes, while sullen, knockless silence meant no.

After some back and forth, it was established that the knocker was John A. Roebling’s late wife, Johanna, and that she would return in two weeks’ time. A system of alphabetic knocks was worked out, and Roebling’s questioning began.

Ever the pragmatist, John A. Roebling dispensed with small talk, meeting his wife’s return with a pre-written list of questions on the afterlife. Several more metaphysical meetings were scheduled, with two of Roebling’s children and his own parents attending from the beyond, but Reobling kept to his intellectual pursuits, leaving emotionality out of it. 

“After your spiritual birth, did you feel like a new being, young, energetic, and full of life?” (yes) “Have you got a Bible there?” (no) “Do you attend public lectures?”(yes) 

He never ran out of steam, and one of the later family seances included a list 61 questions long. But not long after, his bridge proposal received the go ahead, and phantasmal family reunions had to be put on hold. 

The mythos of the Roebling family has inspired its fair share of awe, but the bridge was designed to elicit the same effect all on its own. Look up, toward the arch rising into the sky before you, topped with an American flag that waves in the ever present wind off the water. 

The towers cut an imposing silhouette against the sky, soaring to nearly 300 feet above high water, their paired 100 foot Gothic arches form what seem like windows into the heavens- cathedral vaults soaring above the watery pews below. 

John A. Roebling wrote of the towers “the impression of the whole will be that of massiveness and strength.” These behemoths of stone certainly convey those qualities, but the Roeblings also managed to imbue the structure with elegance. 

The Brooklyn Herald captured the bridge’s juxtaposition of ethereal beauty and eternal stolidness by comparing it to two of the wonders of the ancient world, declaring it had a “practical grandeur” that would “dwarf the Pyramids of Egypt and the Colossus of Rhodes.”
	
Continue up the gentle grade of the concrete, and soak in the vista John A. Roebling so carefully designed. 


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The Bridge and Its Designer

2. BB - Walkway begins

For a moment, set the grandeur aside, the staggering beauty of this pragmatic piece of art, and focus instead on its practicality. At the time of its design nearly 1 in 4 suspension bridges failed, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Only two engineers in the US had any faith in the suspension technique- John A. Roebling was one. The public’s crisis of faith in bridges writ large made congressional approval hard to come by.

Not only was Roebling’s design for the East River a suspension bridge, but it would be the largest yet attempted in the world, one and a half times the size of any he himself had built before. The towers alone would be the largest things ever constructed in North America- at the time the Washington Monument was but a foundation, and few buildings on either bank stretched anywhere near the towers’ projected 7 story height. But Roebling had reassurances at the ready as to how his bridge would be safer than any before.

A key to the bridge’s stability would be the stays- the thin cables you see crisscrossing on either side of the towers, the ones that give the Brooklyn Bridge its signature web-like appearance. 

The vertical suspenders- true to their name- are suspended from the main cables above to support the roadway itself, but the diagonal stays are anchored directly into the tower. The two act in concert- a revolutionary design on Roebling’s part- lending the bridge yet more strength. In his original pitch for the bridge, John A. Roebling told consultants that if the four main cables of the bridge were to fail, the bridge would merely sag, not fall; the diagonal stays would be enough.

The main cables themselves are each made up of 19 smaller wire ropes, one bound to the other and placed together in such a way that each bears equal weight. There are 3,515 miles of wire in each of the four main cables alone, providing 6 times the strength needed for the bridge. 

Finally, in 1869- two years after his proposal was approved in Albany- his hybridized design was approved in D.C., and work on Roebling’s bridge could begin. 

The Roebling name has lived on in fame because of the feat rising before you, but before the fanfare of opening day the Brooklyn bridge would take an incredible toll on the family.

Keep walking on, toward the tower ahead.


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Pragmatic Beauty

3. Beginning of Boardwalk

On a day in late June, 1869, John A. Roebling found himself on the slip of the Fulton Street ferry, across the river from you now. He was surveying, making final calculations for where the bridge would meet the Brooklyn shore. John stood out as far as he could along the slip, balanced on a beam as a ferry came into dock. Though he’d done this countless times before, on this June day it did not go well. The incoming ferry pushed the beams back, and crushed all his toes on one foot. 

Though it must have been excruciating, he gave no sign of the pain, and instead kept shouting orders until he couldn’t any longer, and collapsed. The crushed toes were amputated, and John confined to bed rest. 

As the days passed, he continued issuing instructions for his crews and doctors both (he insisted cold water be poured over his foot ad nauseum), but it became clear that this was not to last. John A. Roebling had tetanus- a rapacious infection that left his doctors baffled even as his health deteriorated.  

In the announcement of his death, in July of 1869, the Brooklyn Eagle proclaimed that “if ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,’ the priceless life of the eminent engineer...will invest that enterprise with still greater importance”- the Brooklyn Bridge had been baptized through his sacrifice. He would never lay eyes on any part of the bridge, never see the “earth be spann’d, connected by network...the lands welded together,” in the words of Walt Whitman. With the death of John A. Roebling, the baton was passed to his son, Washington Roebling. 

Washington was the eldest of the Roebling children, had aided his father on the Brooklyn Bridge project from the beginning. He’d distinguished himself as an engineer during the Civil War, building bridges for the Union Army at key battlegrounds.

Story goes that Washington’s enlistment was prompted at the Roebling dinner table. Lincoln put out a call for volunteers, and John A. Roebling- one can only assume a little petulantly- said to his son, “Don’t you think you have stretched your legs under my mahogany long enough?” By the end of the next day, Washington Roebling was enlisted in the Union Army. After the war’s end, he returned to work with his father, the only one of the Roebling children to do so. 

And so it was that in late 1869, the 32 year old Civil War veteran came to be the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge from groundbreaking to completion. There was the politicking to be expected for such a position, but no one was nearly as well versed in the details of the project as he. 

When you arrive at the platform ahead, go to the right, and linger to look out over  the water. 


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The Bridge's Baptism

4. BB - Beginning of cable cages

Walk to your right, and try to find a spot at the railing. You’ll stay on this platform for a few minutes. The platform below you was akin to the moon in 1867, the year John A. Roebling completed the bridge plans. A tower of this size had never been built in such a way. 

This one’s foundations would have to be sunk to 78 feet and 6 inches below the high tide mark to get to a rock stable enough to support the weight of the huge cables swooping overhead. 

The endeavor was as daring as it was dangerous. It required, in the simplest of terms, building a bottomless pine box roughly the size of half a city block, floating it into place below where you now stand, and sinking it into the water. To get a sense for the size of this box, called a caisson, look over the edge of the platform. From where you stand now, all the way to the water below, 119 feet, is roughly the width of the caisson. You’d have to add about 50 feet more to get to its length. But floating this gargantuan piece into place was just the beginning. 

Feel free to wander around  the platform while you hear more of how its foundations were put into place.

The half-a-block sized box had to remain perfectly level on its journey through the water, down to the riverbed then dug past it, buffeted by high and low tides, until bedrock could serve as its floor. Then, it would be filled with concrete, to become the foundation of the tower you stand beside. 

But without heavy machinery of the modern age, this digging down through rock was done by men within the caisson, swinging pickaxes and sledgehammers beneath the waves for months on end.

To keep the water outside the pine at bay, pressurized air was pumped in. Once the caisson was pressurized, and the water forced out, the men could descend, climbing down a ladder, through an airlock, and into the dark muck below. 

The space inside was divided into six chambers, the walls of which acted as supports for the roughly 3,000 tons resting above the working men- which would only get heavier as blocks of limestone, then granite were added on top of the caisson to form the tower beside you. But the thought of thousands of tons bearing down upon them wasn’t the only thing making the men at work uneasy. 

The use of pressurized air did something strange to the atmosphere in the caisson. Men’s voices didn’t sound like their own. They were thin-sounding and faint, the words difficult to force out. Men’s appetites were heartier after a few hours’ work below than they might be above ground. And, it was hot. No matter the temperature above the water’s surface, in the caisson it was at least 80 degrees- and more humid than the worst summer day. Master Mechanic E. F. Farrington remarked of working down below that “one might, if of a poetic temperament, get a realizing sense of Dante’s Inferno.”

The only saving grace of the unnatural work space was that the heightened pressure took out any sense of smell. On this, Washington Roebling said, “This is a wise provision of nature, because foul odors certainly have their home in a caisson.” 

Walk toward the side of the platform that faces the blue bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, but be careful of the intervening bike lanes.  Can you see the stone blocks at the base of that bridge, where the metal turrets rise to meet the roadway above? Fix your gaze on that stone foundation, and in your mind’s eye remove the steel superstructure. Replace it with cranes swinging fifty feet tall, lowering blocks of granite into place. That’s the sight that greeted shoreline and ferry-going New Yorkers in the late 1800s as the Brooklyn Bridge towers slowly climbed toward the sky with each layer of stone. 

Bring your eyes back to the bridge you stand upon. Gaze up at the top of this tower, and bring your eye towards its center. Can you see the year 1875 emblazoned in stone? That is the year of both towers’ completion. 

Take your time atop this tower. Look at the plaques around its edges, the ones that immortalize Brooklyn’s bridge builders. Take in the views, and soak up the shade. When you’re ready, continue walking toward Brooklyn to hear what came after the towers. 


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The Making of the Towers

5. First tower (Stationary- timing irrelevant)

In 1876, 9 years into the bridge project, the greatest threat to marine traffic came on a Monday morning in August- the day the first wire was run across the East River. Thousands of spectators had gathered on both shorelines, waiting with bated breath to watch the joining of boroughs. A couple of steam tugs towed the cable from Brooklyn to New York just after 9:00am, letting it sink to the bottom in their wake. Engineers atop the tower behind you kept a weather eye on the water, waiting for a gap in river traffic to raise the cable from the depths to its final place at the tower’s peak.

An hour, then two passed by, with no break long enough to hoist the cable from below. Throughout all, the crowds kept growing. Finally, at 11:25am, the all clear came down from the engineers on the towers. 

Master Mechanic Farrington wrote that “there was a ripple around it in the water...it swung clear of the surface...with a sparking swish, amid the cheers of spectators on the wharves and ferryboats.” “WEDDED” read the headline of the evening Brooklyn Eagle- the boroughs had been joined together for the first time (even if only by a single cable).  

Now, fix your gaze on the top of the tower ahead. When the first wires had just been run, the roadway was still just a drawing on paper, and the towers stood alone, imagine what giants these towers must’ve seemed. It was then, in early 1877, that a footbridge was strung between them.
 
This, the first bridge over this water, was but four feet wide- cables with wooden boards strung between, swaying in the wind. It lay high up, roughly 60 feet higher than you now, and it was for a while open to public crossings (provided one got a permit from the NY Bridge Co). 

Permits were a hot commodity, but at least 5 types of applicants were guaranteed a yes- foreign visitors, writers for newspapers, engineers, politicians, and preachers. One man who came to the Brooklyn office to apply felt he fell into the first category, with the solemn declaration that “I am a stranger here.” When asked where he was from, he answered, “New York.” 

He was promptly granted a permit, and got his chance to look on his home-borough from above. 


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Wedded

6. BB - Leaving the first tower

Look around and soak in the unobstructed view of the East River. Here at the center, no cables, cars, or buildings stand in your way. From the beginning, John A. Roebling intended for this section of the bridge- the elevated Promenade- to allow “people of leisure...to promenade over the bridge on fine days, in order to enjoy the beautiful views and the pure air.” No other bridge in the world had such an unimpeded view.

The promenade has withstood the test of time and remains an iconic New York landmark- as does the Statue of Liberty in the distance, though she arrived three years after the bridge’s completion. This is due in part to the unimpeded view, but also to the incredible height of the bridge’s center.

In 1867, John A. Roebling guessed sailing ships would soon be a thing of the past, but he nonetheless planned for the center of the bridge to rise 135 feet above high water, meaning even the tallest of sailing ships would need only to trim their topsails to make it under- provided they remembered.  

Try to sneak a look over the edge now, down toward the water. Imagine, a ship with a mast so high it might reach up to scrape the underbelly of the bridge. That’s what happened one March day toward the beginning of work on the cables. The captain of the U.S.S. Minnesota, perhaps forgetting, perhaps refusing to give up his claim to the waters, neglected to pull down his topmast. Men working on the footbridge above watched its approach, hearts in their throats, waiting to see which would give way. Cheers went up from the cable riggers when wood was heard splintering, and the bridge looked none the worse. 

Take your time on this sun-soaked portion of your stroll- take in the pure air. Continue on toward the next platform at your leisure. 


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The Promenade

7. Center of Promenade

Look down toward the roadway below. When more than 150,000 New Yorkers walked across on Opening Day in 1883, this would’ve looked a tad different. At the time, this bridge had only one lane each way for horse-drawn carriages (they charged a toll of ten cents per carriage), rather than the three car lanes you now see going in either direction

Directly below your feet would have been a steel cable-towed train that could get folks from one side to the other in five minutes for only five cents per passenger. In its first year of operation that train carried more than 9 million folks between the shores, and by 1888, about 30 million people used the bridge trains each year. 

But by 1944, the train lines and their terminals were dismantled, and by 1950 renovations were underway to remove train and trolley tracks and expand the lanes for vehicle traffic to what they are now. This shift begs the question of whether it was in fact a step forward or back. In 1907, experts estimate 476,000 people crossed the bridge a day, using trolleys, elevated trains, and the promenade. With the expansion of car lanes, however, 14,000 cross on the promenade a day, and roughly 100,000- mostly single occupancy- cars, a sharp decline from the bridge’s peak. 

The pedestrian Promenade, however, has remained mostly unchanged through it all, true to John A. Roebling’s designs. Lucky for you, the one cent toll paid by pedestrians of old has fallen to the wayside.

Continue walking; when you reach the platform for the second tower, go to the right, and walk towards its far end.  


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Then and Now

7.5 This could be a new segment all its own if we wanted

When you arrive at the far end of the platform, pause at the railing to look over the edge at the park and piers below. Take note of that wooden pier with the scalloped inlays, the one with the star embedded at its corner: that’s where John A. Roebling met his fate. 

For a moment, return your gaze to the horizon. 

Had you stood here early one Sunday morning in late 1870, the Brooklyn tower only just underway, its caisson making its way through the rock below, this view would have been strikingly different. The horizon would have been blocked by a geyser of mud, rock, sand, and water spewing up toward the sky. Though you’re now roughly 120 feet above the water’s surface, the geyser sprayed still higher, reaching almost 500 feet high, showering the shore below, coating houses even a few blocks inland with mud. Folks said the plume could be seen from a mile away, and the blast of sound that went with it shook them down to their bones. 

Given that Washington Roebling observed the Christian Sabbath, no men were inside the caisson at the time of what would come to be known as “The Great Blowout.” Only three men were on site, atop the caisson, amongst the blocks of stone and the cranes used to move them. One was knocked over by the sudden rush of air into the caisson, another ducked into a nearby pile of coal, and the last dove into the East River below. 

The only injuries to show were some bruises- and a ruined Sunday suit. The caisson itself remained strong through the blast, only settling 10 inches deeper into the riverbed after the blowout- a dramatic test of Washington Roebling’s engineering. 

Wander about this platform as you like, but don’t continue past it yet.
 
This, the first of the two towers to be built, has a far shallower foundation than its sibling. Though it’s 32 feet closer to the surface, in many ways this was the tougher stone to sink. The ground beneath you now, beneath these waves, was rife with boulders, some as big as 14 feet long.  
	
Down in the wan, blue limelight of the caisson, tin-voiced men shouted to one another as they worked to split these stone titans with hand tools, each man drenched in sweat, muck, and river water. Roebling grew tired of the slow progress- sometimes as little as 6 inches of depth in a week- and promptly took a revolver down into the caisson to see what the effect of blasting powder might be in the pressurized space. It proved to be a success, and so blasting became the technique of choice for boulder removal. 

Washington Roebling was hands-on throughout the project. He was one of the first men down in the caisson after the Great Blowout, and was known to spend hours in the caisson observing the work. One such observation, that “When the lungs are filled with compressed air, a person can remain under water from three to four minutes,” he seems to have made from his own experience. 

But ultimately, this hands-on approach would spell disaster for Washington Roebling, as it did for a number of the men working in the caissons. 

For every two feet of water the caisson sank through, one more pound of air pressure was needed to keep the waves at bay. By the time this tower was finished, men down below were working in a space 23 pounds per square inch above the pressure at the surface. 

What we know now, and the men building the bridge didn’t, is about something known as decompression disease, or the bends. When the body is put under higher than average pressure, dissolved nitrogen in the bloodstream separates itself, and becomes bubbles. If the transition back to normal pressures happens too quickly, those bubbles can lodge themselves in blood vessels, denying the body oxygen it so desperately needs, causing what are essentially tiny heart attacks all about the body. This can lead to crippling pain, stomach cramps, and paralysis in the limbs.

Sometimes the pain, and the paralysis, would pass, but other times it was permanent- even deadly. The first death from this “caisson disease,” as they called it, happened while digging the foundation for the New York tower. A German man by the name of John Myers had finished his shift and headed home complaining of stomach pain. As he was climbing up the stairs to his second-floor room, he collapsed, dead before he could make it inside. 

This phenomenon only picked up as the men dug deeper, and by the time the bridge was finished, more than 20 men would perish, most from the mysterious disease of the depths. 

Washington Roebling himself fell victim to the bends as well. After spending the better part of a day and night below this very tower dealing with a fire in December of 1870, Roebling collapsed. Workers had to carry him up through the airlock above, where he was immediately taken home via carriage. Spring of the following year he had another collapse while down below in the New York side caisson, and his health rapidly declined from there. That November he stopped work on the bridge for the winter, and by December, he found he could no longer go to the bridge site at all. And so the bridge took its toll on a second Roebling. 

Walk around to where you came onto this platform, and look for the plaque embedded in the stone of the tower. It makes mention of John A. Roebling, the father and designer, Washington Roebling, the son and Chief Engineer, but perhaps most importantly, Emily Warren Roebling, Washington’s wife, and the woman who ultimately became a crucial piece of the project. 

When you’ve had your fill of the view of Brooklyn’s edges from above, keep walking down the gentle incline toward the shoreline ahead to hear of Emily’s role. 


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Disease of the Depths 

8. Second platform/anchorage

The bridge you now cross might have never been without the steadfast efforts of Emily Warren Roebling- a woman who refused to take no for an answer, whose work transcended her time.

Emily Warren was born to a large family in Cold Spring, New York, due north of the city.

Unlike many women of her day, Emily attended secondary school in Washington D.C. She graduated with highest honors. 

She met her future husband through her brother, a general in the Union Army, whom Washington Roebling served under during the Civil War. According to those who knew the two, it was love at first sight. Throughout the rest of Washington’s service in the Civil War they would exchange letters, numbering in the hundreds- they were each truly smitten. 

The two were married in January of 1865, on Main Street in Cold Spring. It was a happy chapter of life, one rife with potential- one that was not to last. 

While Washington was laid up, suffering from the aftereffects of the bends and failing mental health, Emily took up the mantle, adding the role of “ipso facto” chief engineer to her existing ones as mother and wife. 

Washington’s illness was such that doctors ordered a change of scenery, so the two spent six months at European health baths, then a further three years in Trenton. During this absence, the towers were completed and the process of spanning the river with cabling was begun, observed by the chief engineer only in his mind’s eye, through the patient voice of Emily. 

Turn your head back here a moment, and gaze upon their work, upon a thing that would never have come to be without the dedication of Emily Warren Roebling. 

Though Emily’s role may have been secretarial at the beginning, she soon took on more and more responsibility. By the time they’d returned to Brooklyn, many of the letters from engineers, politicians, and contractors alike were addressed directly to her, with no mention of her husband. 

She made frequent visits to the bridge site, sometimes up to three times a day, acting as Washington’s eyes and ears, but also handling her fair share of questions and concerns- with the complete trust of the men to whom she spoke. Oftentimes, those who came to the Roebling brownstone to inquire of the Chief Engineer found themselves talking to his wife. According to the New York Times of the day, “Their surprise was great when Mrs. Roebling sat down with them, and by her knowledge of engineering helped them clear away difficulties that had been puzzling their brains for weeks.”

Throughout it all Emily was quick to defer any and all credit to her husband, downplaying her own crucial role in the building of the bridge. This minimization of her contributions quickly became a necessity. With how long bridge construction was taking, the board for the bridge company was not unlike musical chairs, and many of the new members weren’t personally familiar with Washington Roebling. 

A number of attempts were made to oust him as Chief Engineer during the 11 years between the beginning of his illness and the completion of the bridge, whether over his unfitness to serve or concerns that he might award lucrative contracts to his own family company- no small concerns with so much public money involved, but unfounded in the end. These attempts were ultimately unsuccessful, in no small part due to Emily’s political maneuverings. 

Only in a letter to her son, 15 years after the completion of the bridge, did she let fall the veil of modesty- “I have more brains, common sense, and know-how generally than any two engineers civil or uncivil...and but for me the Brooklyn Bridge would never have had the name of Roebling in any way connected with it!” 

In spite of her humility, she nonetheless received some well deserved praise. She was the first to cross the finished bridge, riding in a horse drawn carriage, a live rooster in her lap for luck, while workmen along the way lifted their hats and cheered her as she passed- they knew her well.

During a speech on opening day, a congressman from New York proclaimed, “The name of Mrs. Emily Warren Roebling will thus be inseparably associated with all that is admirable in human nature, and with all that is wonderful in the constructive world of art."

Keep walking straight, and head down this concrete slope.


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Emily Warren Roebling

9. Brooklyn Land Span

You are now walking above one of two anchorages of the Brooklyn Bridge, though you can’t see them from where you stand now. The anchorages are the colossal stone constructions beneath the bridge that house the anchors for the four main cables. Within each are 23-ton anchor plates that secure the ends of each cable and the almost 7,000 tons they collectively bear.

In his original design, John A. Roebling pitched the anchorages as multi-purpose, a part of his plan for the bridge to pay for itself. He maintained that the hollow insides of the 8-story monstrosities would provide the safest treasury vaults in the nation, and could be rented out as such.

But rather than treasuries, the anchorages started out as storage for liquid gold- wine and liquor. There was a brief window during Prohibition when newspaper bundles replaced the wine bottles, but after “the dry era” ended the wine distributors returned with flair. 

On July 11, 1934, a few months after Prohibition officially came to an end, a party was held in the vaults of the Manhattan Anchorage. Members of New York’s upper crust waltzed beneath the bridge as an orchestra played “Blue Danube,” and tray-laden waiters handed out champagne in crystal glasses. 

The labyrinthine walls were distinguished by stencilled street names to reflect the vintages they held, and the walls were emblazoned with wine-related wisdom: “Who loveth not wine, women and song, He remaineth a fool his whole life long.” But the days of subterranean revels drew to a close. After the end of World War II, the city of New York reclaimed the vaults for its own use. 

Stay to the right up ahead, where the way forks and note the inlay beneath your feet welcomes you to Brooklyn. As the path narrows, be wary of bikes rushing by to your left, and be sure to stay to the right, in the pedestrian lane. 

In the years of the Cold War, piles upon piles of boxes, water drums, and metal canisters were stored in one of the vaults below the Manhattan approach- all stamped with the telltale dates of 1957 and 1962: the launch of Sputnik and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Civil defense agencies were attempting to prepare for a nuclear attack, stockpiling food, water, and Dextran, a medication for treating shock for survivors. 

Luckily, the cache went unused, only to be re-discovered in 2006 during a routine inspection. Nowadays, the sloping vaults under the bridge serve as storage for the city’s maintenance equipment. 

Now let the years fall away, and cast your mind back to those early days, when only a footbridge swung between the towers, and the anchorages were freshcut stone. Then, in 1877, is when the approaches were begun. The approaches are the concrete you now trod, the portion between the anchorage and the ground below. To ensure they were built at the proper angle, a number of existing buildings had to be torn down to make room on both banks of the East River. 

On this side of the river, some grieving had to be done. A borough landmark, the Sands Street Methodist Episcopal Church, a Brooklyn institution since the late 1700s, was torn down to make way for the roadway. Some older homes in the area, hailed as “mansions in their day,” had to be demolished as well. The only consolation was the discovery of a few old Spanish coins while digging the foundations. 

On the Manhattan side, however, rejoicing was done during demolition, with the New York Times of the era declaring that “the construction of the bridge...will do more toward clearing the vicinity of Dover and Water Streets of its infamous associations than the many home missionaries who are working so nobly there.” The neighborhood was a hotbed for river pirate activity, noted by the Brooklyn Eagle as the place that “thieves and junkmen would meet to ‘put up jobs’...[and] young thieves became graduates in crime.” 

But ultimately, churches and pirate bars alike are ruled by cash flow, and land on both sides was acquired by the bridge company to make room for the approaches now in place. 

Keep following this concrete curve between brown iron railings as you make your return to ground level, and Brooklyn begins to rise around you. 


bk bridge 11.jpg

Welcome to Brooklyn

10. BB Anchorage

As the borough has grown and adapted, so too has its bridge. 

Though the Brooklyn Bridge’s shifts may seem inconsequential, they serve as a microcosmic look at the ways in which it has evolved from design, to finished work, to New York City icon and landmark. Since the bridge’s beginning it’s served as parade ground, wine cellar, and fallout shelter, but most recently as the setting for a demand for justice, for recognition of the fact that Black Lives Matter. 

"We cannot close our eyes to the appalling fact that the prominent events of history are made up of a long series of individual and national crimes." So wrote the designer of the bridge that lies behind you, John A. Roebling, in the 1860s.

And on May 25, 2020, more eyes than ever before were opened wide with the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota. Another in a long list of crimes of police brutality, this one hit the national consciousness differently, and within hours protests broke out across the country. 

For any number of days in May, June, and into July, the footpath you now walk, as well as the roadways to either side, were jammed with protesters- perhaps you were there too...; people packed shoulder to shoulder, unified in their outrage, pain, and demand for recognition that Black Lives, dreams, fears, and hopes Matter. 

Protesters clad in black and masked against Covid-19 made their patient way toward Manhattan, crowded between the iron railings on either side of you, a ribbon of bodies spanning the river with no end in sight. 

Signs held aloft amid a sea of raised fists read, “We can’t breathe,” “No Justice, No Peace,” and “No lives matter until Black Lives Matter.” Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, George Floyd, Breona Taylor, and the names of other Black lives lost to police brutality were lifted up, and justice was demanded- from policy makers across the country, but from the NYPD in particular. 

Since 1985, more than 323,000 civil complaints have been filed against NYPD officers, with less than 3 percent resulting in penalties for those officers, according to the New York Times. 

These cries for justice are nothing new, nor is the apathy with which city officials have met them. But the recent protests atop the Brooklyn Bridge are by no means the first. 

Demonstrations on the structure behind you have spanned both ends of the moral arc of history. In 1964, more than 10,000 white parents, predominantly white women, marched from Brooklyn to City Hall in Manhattan, co-opting the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement. Their aim: to decry the desegregation of New York schools, claiming that as “parents and taxpayers” they deserved to have their voices heard. Never mind that Black and Brown New Yorkers were parents and taxpayers, too. 

In 2011, the bridge was the site of the mass arrest of protesters who chose to veer off of the pedestrian promenade, peacefully marching into the traffic lanes during the Occupy Wall Street movement. 732 were arrested, though the bulk of the charges were later dropped.

Could John A. Roebling have ever anticipated that his bridge would serve such varied purposes? That its arches would rise over crowds, producing resounding echoes of New Yorkers’ cries of grief, solidarity, and resolve more than 150 years after its design? He wrote during the Civil War, “When a whole nation had been steeped for a whole century in sins of inequity, it may require a political tornado to purify its atmosphere." 

The protests, and the calls for awakening and awareness, stretch back for decades. But the political tornado, the substantive changes needed in this nation for the American Dream to be anything more than a farce, are still lacking, those in power unwilling to take the necessary steps of their own volition. But this bridge has strength for many more marchers yet, they need only to rise. 

The promenade from which you came belongs not to any shareholders or to any individual, but to the people of New York, and melds to meet their needs as asked.  

But this was not always the case for the Brooklyn Bridge; it had its own sins of inequality at inception. In the 1860s, the ownership of the bridge was divided between the (at the time) separate cities of New York and Brooklyn, with a small portion sold as private stock. John A. Roebling’s initial estimate for the cost of the bridge was 5 million dollars. So, Brooklyn was committed to 3 million, New York to 1.5 million, and the remaining half a million was to be sold.

New York, however, was feeling tentative about coughing up its portion, hesitant to make such a buy-in on what still must have seemed an impossible errand. Enter William “Boss” Tweed, leader of the Tweed Ring, puller of strings and taker of payoffs in New York City politics for more than a decade. 

Tweed was more than happy to help the Bridge Company bring the recalcitrant New York into the fold, and handle any other obstacles that may arise- for a price. The setup of legislation around the bridge company was such that private stockholders controlled the entire corporation, so even those who contributed only $1000 would have more say over bridge matters (including who might get contracts for materials and labor) than would either of the two cities. All told, the month after John A. Roebling’s death, Tweed and his cronies walked away with 1,680 shares, and all the power that entailed. 

But after a few too many contracts went to a few too many friends, the powers that be restructured company control, and the cities of Brooklyn and New York were granted voting power, rendering the Tweed Ring’s control rather moot. 

When you reach the concrete NYPD barriers, take the crosswalk to the right, and walk up the gentle slope of Tillary Street.


BLM Bk Bridge.jpg

No Justice, No Peace

30 MPH sign on the concrete ramp off the bridge

Keep walking up Tillary Street, keeping that line of concrete cylinders to your left.

Do you see the sculpture emerging from the median, pointed hand raised high, reminiscent of Lady Liberty herself? This piece is called “Unity,” and was made by artist Hank Willis Thomas as an “homage to...the spirit of Brooklyn.” 

Fitting that such a symbol of ambition and perseverance is placed at the entrance to Brooklyn from the foot of a bridge once thought impossible, made reality only through the painstaking labor of largely immigrant men (and women) who called this borough home. 

Do you see those trees coming up on your right? Keep heading up this hill and across that crosswalk ahead. 

Those trees make up the southeast corner of Cadman Plaza Park, whose southern entrance is just ahead of you, where you see the low stone walls curving around forming a welcoming embrace for park visitors. As you draw nearer, perhaps you notice some more vibrant benches than you might expect from a public park. Long stripes of red, black, and green- colors of the Pan-African flag- line the planks that form the seat and backs of the entryway benches. Or maybe you see the 19 new saplings planted amongst the smooth-barked London Plane Trees- look for them in amongst the dappled shade of their older neighbors.

This portion of the park was renamed Juneteenth Grove on June 19th of 2020, amidst the protests and cries for justice. Juneteenth is the holiday that honors the day a Union general finally made his way to Galveston, Texas to inform enslaved people that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them, the last people to hear the news. 

Though a nice gesture, the renaming of a portion of an existing park is not what protesters were marching for. Rather, Juneteenth Grove exists in lieu of any substantive change in policing, or any attempt on the part of New York City government to reckon with the systemic racism built into city education, transit, and criminal justice systems. 

Continue on down Tillary, and cross to the far side of Cadman Plaza up ahead. Then, turn right to hear more about the streets you trod.


bk bridge 13.jpg

Juneteenth Grove

Tillary, far side of crosswalk from bridge entrance

Put the park on your right, and go straight down Cadman Plaza West.

From 1883 until the 1940s, the northern end of Cadman Plaza park was home to the Sands Street Terminal, a stopping point for the trains and trolleys that once ran across the Brooklyn Bridge. Built to be double the size of the terminal on the Manhattan side of the bridge, the trains that went through the Sands Street stop would carry as many as thirty million passengers a year only five years after opening. 

The terminal was torn down in the 1940s when the Brooklyn Bridge traded on ramps for rail lines, to be replaced by Cadman Plaza Park, there today. 

Do you see that intersection up ahead, Clark Street? Cross to the far side, then turn left. 


bk bridge 15.jpg

Sands Street Terminal 

13. Far side of Cadman (after crosswalk)

Turn left, and head down Clark Street, under that narrow bridge overhead. 

You are now walking deeper into the neighborhood known as Brooklyn Heights, so named for its place atop a natural bluff overlooking the East River. The history of this neighborhood stretches back far before the building of the bridge, and includes such claims to fame as the first suburb in America, and the site of George Washington’s command during the Battle of Brooklyn. 

With the exception of a few homes, much of the area around you remained farmland until well after the Revolutionary War. The waterfront below, however, bustled with industry, and with a fateful distillery owned by one Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

In the years following the war, an entrepreneurial spirit by the name of Hezekiah Beers Pierrepont bought Livingston’s distillery, anticipating the metropolises that New York and Brooklyn would soon become. But a number of other similar spirits had similar ideas, and Pierrepont was forced to move out of liquor and into real estate.

The layout of the streets you now walk was largely his work, a part of his aim to engineer New York’s first commuter community, where Manhattan-dwellers could escape the crush of the city without surrendering their city jobs. He quickly bought up large tracts of farmland (of which there were only seven to begin with), hoping to leverage the appeal of the views off of the bluff. He then hired a surveyor to replicate the grid layout of Manhattan’s streets across the river here, all for the low price of $35 and a commissioner of streets position. 

Do you see the traffic light up ahead? Cross to the far side, by the Hotel St. George, then turn right. 


fulton ferry landing bk.jpg

The Neighborhood

14. Far side of Clark

Head down Henry Street, putting the Hotel St. George on your left. 

At the same time Pierrepont was maneuvering, the Hicks brothers were similarly engaged in developing the neighborhood. Their target audience, however, was native Brooklynites. They sought to divvy the neighborhood up into small plots for frame houses, rather than gridded avenues lined with the row houses of Pierrepont’s imagination. 

These contesting visions eventually led to the variety of architecture before you today- modest Federal style homes can be found next to those in the Victorian Gothic style, with a Colonial Revival design just across the way. 

Do you see that green-awning-ed building up ahead? At that intersection, turn left onto Pineapple Street, and walk down the canyon-like block, walled with red brick and overarching trees. 

Ultimately, Pierrepont would win the day, but we can thank the brothers for what are known as the “fruity streets-” Pineapple, and Orange and Cranberry just to the north- the Hicks’ attempt at curb appeal. Pierrepont’s willingness for early investment pushed him slightly ahead of the Hicks brothers, but his close friendship with ferry tycoon Robert Fulton sealed the deal. 

Fulton’s new steam ferry was a crucial part of Pierrepont’s plan; to build a commuter community, one must have a way for people to commute at all. In 1814, decades before the Brooklyn Bridge was even designed, Robert Fulton (Pierrepont’s Parisian protege) announced the inaugural ferry from Manhattan to Brooklyn, the Nassau, bringing Pierrepont’s vision of Brooklyn Heights fully into being.

Keep straight along Pineapple Street, until it comes to an end at Columbia Heights. 

Pierrepont’s thoughts on the bluff’s allure would prove to be right on target. Washington and Emily Roebling themselves had a home along it, with bay windows that looked out over the East River. Legend has it that Washington spent the bulk of his illness pressed up against the glass, telescope in hand, watching the growth of his bridge from afar while Emily handled the hands-on aspects of the work. Referred to by the chief mechanic as the “first female field engineer,” you’re now acquainted with her foundational role in the Brooklyn Bridge; but Emily Roebling’s prolific nature did not disappear with the completion of the bridge.  

Though there was what some would call a lull in the years following the bridge opening, after getting her only son settled in his adult life, she was able to turn her attention to her own pursuits. 

She re-entered the world of high society, participating in several women’s clubs, but left herself time to travel. In 1896 she elected to travel to Europe alone, and had quite the eventful trip. She was received by Queen Victoria in the Court of St. James, and was also one of few Americans present at the coronation of Nicholas II in Russia- the last of the czars.  

Not too long after her return stateside, Emily enrolled herself in the “women’s law” course of study at NYU. Though it was more common for elite women of the day to simply audit the course, she passed with flying colors, and graduated the winner of the program’s essay contest with a piece entitled “A Wife’s Disabilities.” 

In it she detailed the inequitable distribution of wealth between spouses, noting that any and all earned income between herself and her husband belonged to Washington Roebling alone, arguing “property should belong to both partners equally.” But in spite of her “self-sacrificing devotion” to his own work, Washington said of the essay that he “did not agree with one word she has said.”

Emily Roebling passed away in 1903, at the age of 59, but her legacy can still be seen here today if you but look out over the water, at the view she must have taken in countless times from the bay windows of their Brooklyn Heights home. 

Just a bit further up, Pineapple Street comes to an end as it runs into Columbia Heights. Cross to the far side- you’ll see a pedestrian path that slopes gently down, with wrought iron on either side. Follow that path to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade for a full view of the Roebling legacy. 


bk bridge 16.jpg

A Fateful Resident

Far Side of Henry

Walk straight down the gentle slope ahead, between the wrought iron and toward the sparkling surface of the East River. Now can you see the Manhattan skyline, separated from you by trees and the water?

You’re now entering the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, a controversial project of city planner and power broker Robert Moses that is today one of the most iconic views in all of New York City. Walk up to the railing to take in the view, and saunter around the promenade as you wish.

Look to you right, and let the magnitude of the tower wash over you. From the bridge itself it can be difficult to appreciate the grace with which the structure sweeps through the air and over the water. From this vantage point it’s possible to drink it all in. 

The exquisite nature of the inverse arc created by the support cables seems somehow so elegant from this distance, giving no hint of the thousands upon thousands of tons it holds in suspension above the waves. No hint of the almost 30 lives lost in its creation, or the geyser that once spewed hundreds of feet above the tower before you. 

The work of practical grandeur rising from the East River today has captivated all who’ve viewed it since the day it broke ground. The Brooklyn Bridge revolutionized both Manhattan and Brooklyn, literally paving the way for an ever more interconnected city. New Yorkers could, with their own two feet, stride through the air and over the water from one borough to another. 

And so, on the eve of the bridge’s opening day, the people of New York celebrated like they never had before. The river in front of you looked like solid land, with boats packed together from bank to bank, on both sides of the bridge. Bridge-top pedestrians waved down to those on the boats, as cheers rolled across the water. After the morning’s presidential parade had come speeches, came elaborate parties, but these were for the well-to-do, the elite who’d been in charge of the project. 

But when the sun went down, those responsible for the building of the bridge itself- the digging of the caissons, the laying of the stones, the stringing of the cables- saw the worth of their work proclaimed across the river in bursts of light. “One by one the series of electric lights on the bridge leaped up until the chain was made from Brooklyn to New York,” wrote one viewer. But they wouldn’t stay on for long. 

As darkness fell, a lone rocket went up near where you are now, bursting in a cascade of blue light. On cue, the electric lights on the bridge shut off, and a fireworks show the likes of which New York had never seen, begun.

Firemen scrambled about the roadways as the light show illuminated the bridge for a full hour, joined by those set off on the boats spread across the river and in the streets of Brooklyn and New York alike. Rockets painted the bridge in silver, red, and gold, while bands played their hearts out on the boats below. The finale of the evening- five hundred fireworks set off at once- was unlike anything seen before, a shower of golden light that shimmered down through the air. 

That night, it seemed the bridge was lauded not only by earthbound celebrations, but celestial ones as well. A rooftop observer wrote, "Hardly had the last falling spark died out...when the moon rose slowly over the further tower and sent a broad beam like a benediction across the river.” 

The Brooklyn Bridge has meant many things to many people over the course of its nearly 140 years, but perhaps Seth Low, mayor of Brooklyn at the time of its opening, put it best. “No one shall see it and not feel prouder to be a” human being. 

You now join the millions who have walked, worked, and protested on this immigrant-designed and built American icon.

Take your time along the promenade, or perhaps wander down to Brooklyn Bridge Park below, but take one last look before you go. 

Drink in this vision of “our most durable monument...a work of bare utility; not a shrine, not a fortress, not a palace, but a bridge.” A work of practical grandeur that combines the joys of aesthetic beauty with the pragmatism of utility.  

Practical Grandeur was written and produced by Rebecca Chaisson, it was read by me, Michael Reynolds, and my partner in everything, Henna Wang. If you enjoyed this walk, please consider supporting our work by paying our suggested ticket price and leaving us an app store review. You should see links for both on your phone screen in just a moment. Thanks for joining us! 


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