The Brooklyn Bridge

John Roebling designed the bridge and never saw it built. In 1869 a ferry crushed his foot while he was surveying the site, and he died of tetanus that July. His son Washington took over, worked down in the compressed-air caissons that carry the towers to bedrock, and came up with decompression sickness.

Confined to his home in Brooklyn, Washington stayed chief engineer. In practice his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, taught herself the engineering, carried his instructions to the site, and dealt with the contractors and the politicians for years. About a week before the official opening she rode across in the first carriage, a rooster in her lap.

The bridge opened on May 24, 1883, with a main span of 1,595 feet, the longest suspension span in the world at the time. Doubters remained. In May 1884, P. T. Barnum marched twenty-one elephants across it to show it would hold.

The picture catches it at dusk. A heavy stone tower with pointed arches fills the center, cables fan toward the far tower, and on the deck gas lamps glow over horse-drawn carriages and walkers in long coats. Steamers and masted ships crowd the river below.