The building took from 1869 to 1883, so it is to be expected that during the fourteen years many incidents happened most were related to the Brooklyn enterprise directly and some indirectly, as it happened with the tragedy of the Tay Bridge disaster in Scotland in 1879. There are so many aspects in the structure of this bridge, that one cannot say that it is "The First" except in a few of its characteristics. I enjoyed the way McCullough puts the building of the bridge in the context of similar and earlier engineering feats. As I am a visual person, I needed more graphs than textual accounts, so I resorted to the web for additional videos, graphs and drawings. The descriptions of technical details were often over my head. I have felt that I was facing far too large a load of information when reading it. I have to acknowledge, though, that though I have enjoyed greatly learning more about this historical episode of human ingenuity, McCullough's treatment was too good for me. I have therefore wanted to read this book for several years. In one of the episodes it focused on this land-and-river-mark - on its novelty, its innovations and the human tragedy that it also brought about.Īround that time also I read, and was fascinated by, David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas. I first became interested in the story behind the design and building of the Brooklyn Bridge a few years ago when I watched the TV documentary 'New York' by Ric Burns. The Great Bridge is a sweeping narrative of a stupendous American achievement that rose up out of its era like a cathedral, a symbol of affirmation then and still in our time. At the center of the drama were the stricken chief engineer, Washington Roebling and his remarkable wife, Emily Warren Roebling, neither of whom ever gave up in the face of one heartbreaking setback after another. Courage, chicanery, unprecedented ingenuity and plain blundering, heroes, rascals, all the best and worst in human nature played a part. (It was the heyday of Boss Tweed in New York.)īut the Brooklyn Bridge was at once the greatest engineering triumph of the age, a surpassing work of art, a proud American icon, and a story like no other in our history. Published on the fortieth anniversary of its initial publication, this edition of the classic book contains a new Preface by David McCullough, “one of our most gifted living writers” ( The Washington Post).īuilt to join the rapidly expanding cities of New York and Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Bridge was thought by many at the start to be an impossibility destined to fail if not from insurmountable technical problems then from political corruption.
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