Designed by John A. Roebling, who died before construction began, and completed in 1883 under his son Washington, its 1,595-foot main span was the longest suspension bridge span in the world, a record it held until the Williamsburg Bridge surpassed it by 4.5 feet in 1903.
Since a 2021 redesign the pedestrian promenade is physically separated from a dedicated bike lane, but the Manhattan-side entrance remains a tight pinch point — stay in the marked pedestrian lane and watch for cyclists at the approaches.
The bridge's hardest problem was not the span but the riverbed. Two timber caissons — upturned boxes pressurized with compressed air so men could dig out the ground beneath them — were sunk under the tower sites and loaded with masonry as they descended. The Brooklyn caisson found bedrock at 44 feet 6 inches below high water. The Manhattan caisson was still in dense sand and gravel at 78 feet 6 inches when Washington Roebling, after a third death in the workings, judged the material as good as rock and stopped. The tower has stood on it since.
Compressed air crippled him for it. John A. Roebling had died of tetanus in July 1869 after a ferry crushed his foot; his son took over, contracted caisson disease, and directed the remaining decade of work from a bedroom window in Brooklyn Heights. Emily Warren Roebling learned the engineering, carried his instructions to the site, and took on much of the chief engineer's day-to-day supervision across eleven years. She was, officially, the first person to cross when the bridge opened on May 24, 1883.
Fraud is spun into the cables. In 1878 the wire contractor J. Lloyd Haigh was found to be swapping approved wire for rejected wire after inspection; by the time it was discovered the bad wire was already in the cables and could not be pulled out. Roebling calculated the lost margin and required Haigh to supply 150 additional wires per cable, at his own expense, to make it up. Each main cable holds 5,282 galvanized steel wires, and 400 diagonal stays run from the towers to the deck as a second, independent system of support.
At street level the towers read as masonry — granite from Vinalhaven in Maine, limestone from Essex County, Rosendale cement — pierced by pointed Gothic arches that have nothing structural to do with the steel behind them. Roebling set the walkway 18 feet above the roadways rather than beside them, which is why the crossing still offers a view rather than a shoulder of traffic.
Brooklyn Bridge, New York, NY 10038
The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world when opened, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915.
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