Building the Brooklyn Bridge
The Roeblings, Caisson Disease, and the 1883 Opening
- 3 chapters
- 15m
- Civil Engineering
- Free · no sign-up
Emily Warren Roebling directed the construction work while her husband recovered. She learned engineering principles and communicated with workers daily, becoming the de facto leader of the project. The bridge's wire rope was later found to have been installed using fraudulent methods by contractor Haigh.
This book explores how civil engineering met occupational medicine during America's greatest bridge-building era. Readers will find this essential who wants to understand how one of the world's most famous structures was actually built.
Listen
-
Read this chapter
Overview
John Augustus Roebling, born Johann August Röbling in Germany, was a civil engineer who moved to America and became known for building wire rope suspension bridges. He is most famous for designing the Brooklyn Bridge, which stands as both a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Roebling worked on this project until his death in 1869, just months before its completion.
Early life and education
John A. Roebling was born on June 12, 1806, in Mühlhausen to Friederike Dorothea and Christoph Polykarpus Roebling. At age fifteen, he began private study in mathematics and science under Ephraim Salomon Unger in Erfurt. In 1824, he passed his Surveyor's examination and spent a year at home before entering the Bauakademie in Berlin for two semesters. There, he studied architecture and engineering with Martin Friedrich Rabe, bridge and foundation construction with Johann Friedrich Dietlein, hydraulics with Johann Albert Eytelwein, and languages. He also attended lectures by philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Roebling developed an interest in natural philosophy and later worked on a 1000-page treatise of his own concepts of the universe. In 1825, he took a position with the government in the Arnsberg province, relocating to Eslohe where he spent four years designing and overseeing military road construction. During this time, he drew up plans for suspension bridges over the Ruhr- and Lenne-rivers, though they were never built. Returning home in 1829, he completed his final thesis and prepared for a second engineer examination, although he never took it.
Career
John A. Roebling arrived in the United States in 1831, settling in Pennsylvania with his brother Carl and Johann Adolphus Etzler, who believed America offered a technological utopia. After initial farming attempts and the death of his brother, Roebling returned to engineering, working on canal projects and river navigation. He developed wire rope and designed bridges, including one over the Allegheny River in 1844 and another at Pittsburgh in 1845. In 1851, he built a railroad bridge across the Niagara River, and later designed a suspension bridge over the Kentucky River, though it was never completed. Roebling also constructed four suspension aqueducts on the Delaware and Hudson Canal and completed a bridge in Pittsburgh in 1859.
Death
In 1867, John A. Roebling began designing what would become the Brooklyn Bridge. On June 28, 1869, at a dock in Fulton Ferry, his foot was crushed by an incoming ferry. His toes were removed, but he refused additional medical care and instead opted for “water therapy,” a continuous flow of water over the wound. His condition grew worse, and he passed away on July 22, 1869, from tetanus at his son’s home in Brooklyn Heights—twenty-four days after the accident. His son Washington took over as chief engineer, though he too became ill from caisson disease. It was then that his wife, Emily Warren Roebling, stepped in to lead the project until its completion in 1883. John Roebling is buried in Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey.
Legacy
John A. Roebling designed a method for analyzing bridge structures that balanced forces while allowing for deformation, known as an "equilibrium strength approach." His company, John A. Roebling's Sons Co., later built the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco between 1933 and 1937, a project that honored Roebling’s legacy after his death. The Kinkora Works factory site in Roebling, New Jersey, where the company operated, opened as a museum in 2010 to share the story of the Roebling family and their engineering firm.
-
Read this chapter
Overview
The Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, opening May 24, 1883, as the first fixed crossing. At that time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet and a deck 127 feet above mean high water. John A. Roebling designed the bridge, with major contributions from his son Washington Roebling and his wife Emily Warren Roebling. Construction began in 1870 under the New York Bridge Company, controlled by Tammany Hall. The project took more than thirteen years due to controversies and design complexity. Officially renamed in 1915, it carried horse-drawn vehicles and elevated railways until 1950. Since then, it has undergone several renovations and remains one of five vehicular bridges connecting Manhattan and Long Island, allowing only passenger vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists. A major tourist attraction, it has also been used for stunts and crimes, and is recognized as a National Historic Landmark, a New York City landmark, and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
Description
The Brooklyn Bridge stands as one of the first steel-wire suspension bridges, combining features of both cable-stayed and suspension designs. Its towers rise in a neo-Gothic style, decorated with pointed arches. The structure uses a mix of vertical and diagonal cables to support the roadway. According to the New York City Department of Transportation, which is responsible for maintaining the bridge, its original color scheme included “Brooklyn Bridge Tan” and “Silver.” Other sources suggest it was painted entirely in “Rawlins Red.” The bridge opened to the public in 1883.
Deck
The Brooklyn Bridge stretches 6,016 feet from curb to curb between Manhattan and Brooklyn, with long approach viaducts that lift the structure above the East River to allow ships to pass underneath. These approaches raise the bridge's total length, which includes the main span and the elevated roadways at both ends. The measurement of 5,989 feet is sometimes cited instead, marking the distance from Centre Street in Manhattan. This massive structure was built to connect the two shores while maintaining clearance for maritime traffic. When it opened in 1883, it stood as a marvel of engineering and ambition.
Suspension span
The Brooklyn Bridge’s main span stretches 1,595.5 feet between its two towers, standing 85 feet wide, and expands or contracts up to sixteen inches with temperature changes. That span, along with side spans each 930 feet long, is supported by a truss system designed by John Roebling to be six to eight times stronger than needed. A later investigation found that faulty wire had reduced its strength to only four times what was required. The bridge carries a total load of 18,700 tons and features a pedestrian promenade running 18 feet above the roadways, with iron railings made by Janes & Kirtland, the same company that helped build the United States Capitol dome and Central Park’s Bow Bridge.
Approaches
The Brooklyn Bridge's approaches feature Renaissance-style masonry arches with differing ramp lengths—Manhattan side is 1,567 feet while Brooklyn side is 971 feet. Underneath the Manhattan approach, brick "banks" became the Brooklyn Banks skate park in the late 1980s, using support pillars as obstacles. The skateboarding community fought to save the space after it closed during mid-2010s renovations. In the 2000s, smaller banks were destroyed but larger ones preserved. When NYCDOT removed bricks from the banks in 2020, skateboarders launched a petition. Local resident Rosa Chang advocated for the area under the Manhattan approach to become Gotham Park. In May 2023, part of that space reopened as the Arches, and by November 2024, another section had been added.
Cables
The Brooklyn Bridge relies on four main cables that stretch from the tops of its towers to hold up the roadway. These cables, each about 15 and a quarter inches across, are made of more than five thousand individual steel wires bundled into nineteen strands. Workers spent months tying them all together, a method never before used in a suspension bridge. The cables support vertical suspender cables and diagonal stays that hold up the truss structure beneath the deck. Originally made of wire rope, these suspenders were replaced in the 1980s with galvanized steel from Bethlehem Steel. Since the 2000s, the main cables have also carried LED "necklace lights" along their length.
Anchorages
The Brooklyn Bridge's main cables are anchored on each side in massive trapezoidal limestone structures, 129 by 119 feet at the base and 117 by 104 feet at the top, weighing 60,000 short tons each. The Manhattan anchorage sits on bedrock, while the Brooklyn one rests on clay. Each anchorage holds four anchor plates, measuring 16 by 17.5 feet and thick as 2.5 feet, weighing 46,000 pounds each. These plates connect to the cables via sets of nine eyebars, which curve down from the cables toward the plates. Starting in 1876, the large vaults beneath the Manhattan anchorage were rented out for storage, used for wine in the early 1900s, and later stored maintenance equipment. One cellar contained a "fading inscription" reading: "Who loveth not wine, women and song, he remaineth a fool his whole life long." The vaults were closed during World War I and Prohibition but reopened afterward. Repairs were needed in the late 1980s and early 1990s due to leaks.
Towers
The Brooklyn Bridge’s two towers rise 278 feet high, built from limestone, granite, and Rosendale cement. The limestone came from a quarry in Essex County, New York, while the granite blocks were shaped on Vinalhaven Island, Maine, then shipped by schooner to New York. Each tower holds a pair of Gothic Revival arches through which the roadways pass. The arches are 117 feet tall and 33.75 feet wide, with the tower tops reaching 159 feet above the arch openings. The floors of the arches sit 119.25 feet above mean water level, making the full height of each tower 278.25 feet above high water. The Manhattan tower contains 46,945 cubic yards of masonry, and the Brooklyn tower has 38,214 cubic yards. Mounted on the towers are 56 LED lamps.
-
Read this chapter
Overview
Emily Warren Roebling was an engineer who played a vital role in finishing the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, Washington Roebling, fell ill with caisson disease and became unable to work. She took over as the main connection between her husband and the workers on site, helping to guide the project for more than ten years. Washington Roebling had been the chief engineer on the bridge, a structure designed by his father, John A. Roebling.
Early life
Emily Warren Roebling was born on September 23, 1843, in Cold Spring, New York, to Sylvanus and Phebe Warren, and was the second-youngest of twelve children. Her older brother, Major General Gouverneur K. Warren, supported her education, and the two were close. She attended school at the Georgetown Visitation Academy in Washington, DC. In 1864, during the Civil War, she visited her brother at his headquarters where she met Washington Roebling, a civil engineer who served on her brother’s staff. The two married on January 18, 1865, in a dual ceremony in Cold Spring. While John Roebling began work on the bridge, the couple studied caissons in Europe and later had a son, John A. Roebling II, in Germany in November 1867.
Brooklyn Bridge
After returning from European studies, Washington and Emily Roebling faced tragedy when Washington's father died in 1869 from tetanus after an accident at the bridge site. Washington was then appointed chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, but became ill with caisson disease—decompression sickness—from working underwater, growing so sick that he became bedridden. Emily, the only one to visit him during his illness, took over relaying information between Washington and his assistants, learning engineering details from him while drawing on her prior knowledge of the project. For ten years, she managed much of the bridge's construction, working with politicians and engineers, so much so that people began to believe she was the designer. In 1882, when Washington's position as chief engineer was threatened by his illness, Emily lobbied to keep him in charge. The Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, and before the official ceremony, Emily rode across it in a carriage, carrying a rooster as a symbol of victory. At the opening, Abram Stevens Hewitt honored her, saying that the bridge was "an everlasting monument to the sacrificing devotion of a woman and of her capacity for that higher education from which she has been too long disbarred."
Later life
After the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, Emily Warren Roebling focused on advancing women's rights and social causes. She joined organizations such as the Committee of Sorosis, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the George Washington Memorial Association, all working on historical issues for the U.S. She also took part in the Relief Society during the Spanish–American War and traveled extensively—being presented to Queen Victoria in 1896 and attending the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in St. Petersburg. Roebling continued her education, earning a law certificate from New York University. In 1899, she published "A Wife's Disabilities" in the Albany Law Journal, an essay that received wide acclaim and awards, arguing for greater women's rights and criticizing discriminatory practices. She signed it with her husband's initials, W.A.R. Roebling lived until February 28, 1903, from stomach cancer, spending her final years with family and staying mentally active.
Tributes
The Brooklyn Bridge today carries a plaque for Emily Warren Roebling, her husband Washington Roebling, and his father John A. Roebling. In 2018, The New York Times honored her with a belated obituary as part of a series spotlighting overlooked women and minorities. Her involvement in the bridge’s construction and her experience as a woman in the late-nineteenth century were highlighted in season two of The Gilded Age, where her character, portrayed by Liz Wisan, appeared at the opening. That same year, May 2024, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute awarded her a posthumous honorary doctorate during its bicentennial commencement. Wisan accepted the degree on her behalf, delivering a speech generated from Roebling’s own words using GPT-4. Her story also found its way into the musical Brooklyn’s Bridge, which was performed in 2026 at The Space at Irondale in Brooklyn.
Read
Free to download, keep and share. For general information only — not professional medical, legal or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional.