I like to walk. My friends, family and other travel companions know they need to bring comfortable shoes when they go on trips with me. On visits to New York City I've gone on some epic journeys, some lasting more than 8 hours. I had a friend that lived in Dumbo (Down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) in Brooklyn, which coincidentally is also next to the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge and I've walked on three occasions from his apartment to Central Park, around the park and back. That's about a 15 mile journey which normally would take about three hours but in New York City you are too busy stopping and taking in the scenery or a slice of pizza in my case, for it to go that quickly. Maybe if I took the pizza out I'd lose some weight but we are talking about NYC pizza.

The route I would take would start and end with crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. I wouldn't want it any other way. I had always assumed that the wooden walkway on the top of the bridge for pedestrians and bicycles was built recently until I read The Great Bridget by David McCullough. I then found out it was in the initial plan drafted in 1867.

McCullough is one of my favorite history writers as I've mentioned in previous reviews. This particular story was written the year I was born, in 1972. I'll summarize it here.

New York had long wanted to connect Brooklyn with Manhattan. The ferrys took a long time, were dangerous and often unusable. For example if there was fog or the river was frozen, there would be no ferry service. At the time of the building of the bridge, Brooklyn was one of the largest cities in the U.S. both in area and in population. In fact, if it hadn't of merged with Manhattan and the other boroughs it would still be one of the largest in the U.S.

Many proposals were floated but it was John Augustus Roebling, a German immigrant, who submitted a proposal which garnered the support. Roebling was a serious man who never wasted time on anything that wasn't what he perceived as productive. It was his idea to build a suspension bridge and to use primarily steel rather than iron, a novel concept at the time.

Roebling died before the bridge began. The committee in charge of the bridge promoted his son, Washington Roebling to the position of chief engineer. Washington had been part of the planning since the beginning and knew more about the bridge than anyone else.

Construction begins with the burying of caissons, the most fascinating part of the project. It was a device, half the size of a football field where men would work inside of it, underneath the pressure of the water above and dig out the dirt. The towers would be built on top of the caissons.

All of this was before the invention of scuba diving and as a result, workers would suffer from decompression sickness (The Bends) as a result of coming up too fast or staying down too long. There were many tragedies as a result. Doctors tried to figure out a cure and came close at times but never exactly got it.

The 13 years it took to build the bridge took part when the infamous Boss Tweed was running Tammany Hall. Tweed was a notoriously corrupt politician and had his hands in much of the construction as well as his appointed cronies. We'll never know how much of the public funds were looted by their gang but it's surely well into the millions.

The bridge was completed in 1883 and New York celebrated like never before. It wasn't just the grandiosity of the bridge. It wasn't just the length. More than anything, it was the stupendous height of the towers. At the time of the bridge building, the Otis elevator company was just getting off the ground. New York hadn't yet started growing vertical. The island of Manhattan was full of two through four story buildings taking up every block except for central park. It must have been an amazing site, indeed.

Today, when you walk across the bridge into Manhattan you have a full view of the skyline. You know what's coming and it's the anticipation of the sounds, smells and sights that excite you as you descend into to the city.

As you return to Brooklyn, it's much the same, yet different. There's the Brooklyn skyline but the anticipation of the sounds, smells and sights is altogether different. It's more of a "coming home" feeling.

Thank you to the Roebling family for bringing us the bridge.

Thank you to David McCullough for writing the book.