Rediscovering the Original Drawings by Barbara Head Millstein Associate Curator, The Brooklyn Museum In a letter written to the president and directors of the New York Bridge Company on September I, 1867, John A. Roehling, Chief Engineer of the East River Bridge (the Brooklyn Bridge) stated without the slightest fear of contradiction: "Gentlemen, the contemplated work, when constructed in accordance with my design, will not only be the greatest bridge in existence, but it will be the greatest engineering work of this continent and of the age." Because of a tragic accident resulting in his death in 1869, John Roehling did not live to see his prediction reach fruition. The Bridge was built under the supervision of his son, Washington Roehling, and opened on May 24, 1883. It was everything that the elder Roehling had contemplated and more. Despite her three sister bridges , which joined her in spanning the East
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River (the Williamsburg, 1903, the Manhattan , 1905 and the Queensborough, 1909) the mystique of the Brooklyn Bridge has remained intact. For many people around the world, and, indeed , in the United States, the Brooklyn Bridge ranks with the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of our country. Imagine, therefore, how excited I was to learn that there existed a huge collection of original drawings, linen tracings and blueprints used in the construction of the bridge! This was not a rumor or an apocryphal story, as I had been led to believe for years; they were housed in a tiny carpenter shop belonging to the New York City Department of Highways, under the Williamsburg Bridge. More than nine years ago this rumor became reality when a reporter for the Trenton Times (a New Jersey newspaper) tracked down the papers in the carpenter
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When it was built, the 278ft rowers alone dominated the cityscape. John A. Roehling, the designer, predicted this: they would "serve as landmarks to the adj oining cities, and they will be entitled to be ranked as national monuments." But the towers did not stand alone-tossed across the river between them was a 1600ft airborne roadway! Courtesy Municipal Archives, City of New York.
Building the Bridge was something else. It took fourteen years and cost more than twenty lives-including the life of its design er, John A. Roehling. His foot was crushed by the ferry the Bridge would replace, leading to his death from lockjaw. His son Washington A. Roehling was crippledforthe rest ofhis life by caisson disease, or "the bends," as a result of working under pressure in the caissons on which the stone towers were built. His wife Emily acted as liaison with politicians trying to stop the action or get their cut of the immense undertaking, and with the Chief Engineer who executed the meticulously detailed int ructions Washington Roehling issued from his sickbed. Digging went on in the caissons and the huge structures sank into the muck as stone was piled on top and mud dug out beneath, until bedrock was reached at 44 feet on the Brooklyn side. On the Manhattan side digging was stopped short of bedrock and the bridge "floats " today on the longleaf yellow pine of its caisson, bedded in sand 78feet down.
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shop. His interview with Frank Valentine, a bridge engineer, was published , and soon after the New York Times called to ask, "What does The Brooklyn Museum intend to do about the Brooklyn Bridge papers? A private museum in New York plans to use them for an exhibition. Isn't Brooklyn the more logical place?" I rose to the bait and found the carpenter shop and the collection in Williamsburg. When I arrived, the private museum was in the midst of photographing and removing the drawings it found attractive enough to restore and exhibit. The rest were left behind, stuffed in a series of wooden drawers and piled in open cubby holes. They were covered with soot, dirt and sawdust. There were nearly ten thousand-many of them quite lovely. With the assistance of Gail Guillet , an architectural historian , and several volunteers, I started to catalogue the collection, which, after some persuasion was released for storage in the Municipal Archives. The real heroes of this story were the carpenters, William Jeblich , Joseph Vecchio and a man we knew only as "Spanish John" who kept the papers from being destroyed by hiding them in the attic of the carpenter shop. It was there that we eventually found a handwritten catalogue of the collection naming sixty-four men, beside the Roeblings, who had helped design the bridge. The story of the building of the bridge can be read in books by David B. Steinman and Sara Ruth Watson, Bridges and Their Builders, Alan Trachtenberg's Brooklyn Bridge, Fact and Symbol and David McCullough's The Great Bridge. The details are wonderful, sometimes terrible, but al ways exciting. However, the most moving words about the bridge were spoken in a lecture given by E .F. Farrington , Master Mechanic at Cooper Union on March 6 and March 13 in 1880. At the conclusion of his speech Farrington said: " On a work of this description , running through so many years, many changes and casualties must occur .. .. and the impression of familiar faces glide down the vista of time, farther and farther away, like objects seen from the rear of a railway train ; and you feel that the time may not be far away when you too must drop off and be forgotten . Meanwhile, the roar and rumble of the busy world will resound from the bridge. The sun and the stars will shine upon it; the zephyr will toy with its stays and the storms will howl through its latticed sides; but through all and alike indifferent to all it will stand emotionless and firm , an enduring monument to engineering skill and daring, patient and laborious effort." .t SEA HISlDRY, SUMMER 1983