- So now let's move on to the social aspect
of this Brooklyn Bridge.
We'll look at the politics of corruption,
in particular Boss Tweed
and the economics of construction,
which Washington Roebling would have to deal with
both the economics,
but also the politics and the corruption.
And then we see in the end when the bridge is completed
a transformation of communities.
Brooklyn and New York, two major cities
with very large populations.
To get a bridge built, you have to get
political figures to back it up
and to agree to do it.
Boss Tweed essentially controlled
New York City politics through bribes.
He continued to siphon up money
dedicated to the bridge in order to keep things straight
with the political world in New York City,
or at least keep things straight
how he defined it as being straight.
Eventually Boss Tweed was caught
and spent the rest of his time in jail.
But in the meantime, Washington Roebling
had to deal with this kind of corruption
that was going on politically.
To begin the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge,
the first thing that had to be done
was launching the caissons.
The caissons were the foundations
for the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge
and this was a massive wooden structure.
Underneath which workers were digging out dirt
to sink and lower deeper and deeper
until that foundation, until that caisson hit bedrock.
So if you look at an outline of the cross section
of this wooden caisson,
you can see the scale of it
because you can barely make out the little people
that are inside of it.
So from the outside, it looks like a solid wooden mast
but a cross section of that caisson
shows it's essentially an upside down U
where the tips are pointed
so that it allows this to be dug deeper and deeper
digging down until again you reach bedrock.
The caissons were watertight structure
used to build foundations of the towers
and as I said before, they were made of wood.
The water would crush the caissons in
if the air inside were not compressed.
So there was this pressure
that had to built and sided to the air
that was proportional to the depth.
The deeper that caisson went,
the higher that pressure was.
People needed to come up slowly
to avoid getting what's called
the bends or caisson's disease,
but at that time no one understood that.
So the workers that were working
underneath this foundation inside the caissons
were coming up too fast and many of them were dying.
The interior of the caisson was described
by one of the workers,
Master Mechanic E.F. Farrington in this way,
he said, quote, "Inside the caisson everything wore
"an unreal, weird appearance.
"There was a confused sensation in the head.
"The pulse was at first accelerated
"then sometimes fell below the normal rate.
"The voice sounded faint unnatural,
"and it became a great effort to speak.
"What with the flaming lights, the deep shadows,
"the confusing noise of hammers, drills and chains,
"the half-naked forms flitting about,
"with here and there a Sisyphus rolling his stone,
"one might, if of a poetic temperament,
"get a realizing sense of Dante's inferno."
On the Brooklyn side, the caisson was launched in 1870
and filled in 1871.
Meaning in 1871, they hit bedrock at 44 1/2 feet
and then they filled it with concrete.
On the New York side,
the caisson was launched in 1871
and when they reached 45 feet, 50 feet, 60 feet
they still weren't reaching bedrock.
So, Washington Roebling had to make
the difficult decision at 78.6 feet
to stop digging and set that caisson there.
So in 1872, the New York caisson
was filled with concrete.
The decision was difficult
but again, the deeper the caisson went,
the more susceptible the workers were
to caisson's disease or the bends,
so more people were getting ill or dying to do that.
And today we know that decision was a correct one,
that foundation and the tower remains strong.
That same year that the New York caisson was filled,
Washington Roebling becomes paralyzed
with the caisson's disease.
There was a fire in the caisson,
he was there often, coming down, going up
and he eventually became paralyzed
through that caisson's disease.
So now the Brooklyn Bridge is in a perilous situation,
the towers aren't even completed
and we have the man with the vision,
the designer of the bridge, John Roebling,
this man of great emotional and physical strength
who dies in a freak accident
because his toes got crushed.
Then we have his son who takes over
who becomes paralyzed.
And that means he can longer be on the construction site
and oversee the work of the bridge.
So the question becomes
who's going to now direct
the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge?
And the answer to that question is surprising.
It's actually Emily Roebling, Washington Roebling's wife.
Now this is the late 1800s,
to have a woman on the construction site
directing work is really unheard of.
So it really took some heroics
from Emily to make this happen.
Washington Roebling was still involved.
He watched the construction
through the window of his home
and helped Emily, gave her instructions and directions,
and he had control over some basic aspects.
But many things had to be decided on the field,
on site by Emily.
She played an important role in the construction
of the Brooklyn Bridge.
So now that there was a plan
and Emily will be assisting Washington Roebling
while he was paralyzed,
the construction of the towers proceeded.
The towers again were made of heavy masonry
because they had to sink those caissons.
The tower on the Brooklyn side was completed in 1875
and on the New York side it was completed in 1876.
After the towers were completed,
the next step is to build a temporary walkway.
This walkway would be used by the constructors
to build the cables of this bridge.
Now, this walkway was actually open to the public
and so anyone could cross over it.
So many people would walk this walkway
which was actually quite dangerous.
Either to get across from Brooklyn to New York
or vice versa quickly or just for the thrill of it.
But then people started to faint
and they decided to close
that walkway off to the general public.
Once that temporary walkway was set,
next was laying of the wires.
So the wires were spun, it's called the spinning process
that I'll described shortly in a lecture to follow.
And once those cables were spun in place
it was very hard to take it apart
or take anything out,
and this was relevant in the context of the story
of the corruption that surrounded
not only the politics of New York,
but the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
When it came time to bid on who would
provide the wires for the Brooklyn Bridge,
the obvious choice was
Roebling's wire rope manufacturing company.
However, one of the leading members of the commission
which was like a board of trustees for the bridge
objected to having Roebling provide the wires.
He saw it as a conflict of interest.
He saw it as Roebling being the chief engineer
and he would get part of the profit
therefore, the Roebling company should be barred
from bidding on this project.
The man that protested is named Abram Hewitt.
Roebling then sold his stock to satisfy Hewitt
but Hewitt was not satisfied.
And the contract was given to Lloyd Haigh
who was another contractor
who was not only higher priced,
but had a terrible reputation for corruption.
It was later discovered actually
that Hewitt who had spoken all about ethics
and how unethical it would have been for Roebling
to provide the wire was actually getting
a kickback from this contractor.
Meaning he was getting a profit
from this contractor who did get the commission.
Hewitt goes on to become mayor of New York
and all this gets discovered later on
but Washington knew about this right away.
The drama doesn't end there
because actually this company that was
given the bid for the wire was putting in defective wire.
They were putting in wire in another job
but the other job was rejecting some of the wire
and that truck with rejected wire
was then just brought right over to the Brooklyn Bridge
and spun into the cable.
Again, Washington Roebling found out about this
but it was too late, it was already spun into that cable.
So what was done is that more wire
was added to those cables.
So, in the end the Brooklyn Bridge is a safe bridge.
When completed, those towers were the tallest towers
to be seen in the Manhattan and Brooklyn skyline
with the exception of the Trinity Church spire.
Today, we know that with the new Manhattan skyline
that is not the case,
but at that time, again these towers
were essentially skyscrapers.
Before the bridge was opened to the public,
7,000 invitations were given to select citizens
to cross the bridge before that opening.
It opened at midnight with fireworks
on May 24th, 1883.
This opening of the bridge was a national event.
It was an important event for the United States
and actually for the world.
The president of the U.S. at the time was Chester A. Arthur
and he is seen in this rendering as crossing the bridge.
Washington Roebling unfortunately was still paralyzed
and couldn't walk over that bridge
but there present was Emily Roebling.
Again, we know her to have played
an important role in this
and she was recognized for that role.
Next we're gonna look at this bridge in use.
How do people see this bridge today
and how did it inspire some important artists
of the early 1900s?