Citation Needed - The Brooklyn Bridge

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid 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 at the time of its opening, 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. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

I'm just saying, if you recognize the problems with Batman, then don't make a Batman movie. But it's a Batman movie about the problems with Batman. That sounds much worse. It is worse, yes. You guys are worse. Way worse. Here he comes, here he comes. Surprise.

Hey guys. Check out. Oh, man, that's awesome. What's with all the balloons and stuff? You're just celebrating. So we know how much you love the Brooklyn bridge. Right. You read a whole essay about it. So so we did this. We bought it for you. You bought me the Brooklyn bridge. I know. I know. It wasn't cheap. Literally, I'm not gonna make this up literally thousands of dollars

more than two thousand dollars. But you know what, we figured you deserved it, man. Yeah, for sure. You totally deserve it. Guys, guys, now, now Tom, before you shit on this and we know you're going to try to shit on this, but check it out guys. We did our research. We checked it out.

This guy is legit. Yeah, certificate of authenticity and everything. This is real. Yeah, you can't just print those. Can't you? I feel like you can just print those. Okay. Okay. You know what? There's enough. This gift means a lot to me and Heath. We really wanted to get Noah something nice and we spent all the money that we were going to use on NFTs getting it for him. So just, just stop. Okay. It is better than NFTs. better for sure for sure way better I'm sorry is the certificate printed on the back of a phone bill. No, what I mean. Thank you. I love my bridge Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, a podcast where we choose a subject, read a single

article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts, because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Heath, and it's a bridge stuff today. So I'm joined by four men who put the bro in Brooklyn and the id in bridge. Cecil, no any lie. It's not a bro, it's a man's ear. Yes. All I'm saying is be careful with the put the blank in blank construction when I do my episode

on the Holland tunnel. He land. He stopped. You're giving me a super ego. We did not what what's the Holland talking? Yeah, no, if we stop and explain the joke, it's even fun. There's no explanation. You're bluffing.

So no, Keith might have dementia guys. I can't see you in the pro-wild. Lent? Well, send photos. Holland? So Noah, what person-place thing concept phenomenon or event? Are we going to be talking about today? The Brooklyn Bridge. All right, and why did you pick the Brooklyn Bridge?

Because, okay, so it's like one of those engineering marvels that's been so thoroughly surpassed in the modern day that when we look at it now, it's hard to tell what the fuck the marvel even was to the people who first laid eyes on it. Right, like we look at it, we don't see an incredible feat of engineering. We see a pretty bridge, but in its day, it was seen as the exemplar of man's triumph over nature. And according to the wiki quote, a symbol of the era's optimism end quote. And there's no better way in my mind to get a handle on how far we've come as a species that will reflect on just how miraculous the mundane really is.

You know, I actually, I tried to think of what the current era's symbol of optimism might be. But then I just I stared off into the middle distance and cried for 45 minutes instead. So tell him remember Wonder Woman sang imagine into her phone. Yeah. That was nice. When Wonder Woman sang imagine into her phone fixed it. Mission accomplished. So first, let's head back to the New York City of the 1860s.

That would be the same decade as the movie Gangs of New York is set if you need a visual cue. Daniels, I Lewis spends a year getting walking on your back massages to study as role as the Brooklyn. She's in a movie. If anybody could pull it off, okay, method out there. Anyway. So then just reaching the whole movie just got his arms out. Yeah. His legs are on a chair. His hands are holding onto a pipe. His grip strength is extraordinary. So back then as now, New York City was the biggest city in the US up no granted in 1860 it took all

814,000 people to earn that title that'd be a bit smaller than modern-day Indianapolis The second largest city was Philadelphia, but doesn't matter, but the third largest city Much more relevant to the story though the third largest city in the US was Brooklyn Now it did have a population less than modern dec Daitlito, Ohio, but that was a huge city by the standards of the time. And even though the two cities, damn near touched, the only way from one to the other was a series of fairies that could make that 1,800 foot chunk of the commute take well over an hour. So

there was a super duper obvious need for a bridge. Yeah. Now they have three bridges between Brooklyn and Manhattan. So there was a super duper obvious need for a bridge. Yeah. Now they have three bridges between Brooklyn and Manhattan. So you have a bunch of different options for spending an hour going in. You take the train, they go under one for eight and hour. You know, it turns out, I looked this up that Brooklyn was not actually always part of New York. And once it was, as Noah mentioned, it was its own actual city until it was absorbed into New York in what was called, quote, the great mistake of 1898. Now, that mistake eclipses other minor errors such as the Spanish American war. Yeah. It's a discovery of polonium.

Of course, since we're mediums, those were mediums. Now, of course, since 1800, people had been making formal proposals to build a bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, but the technology wouldn't allow for it. By the mid 1800s, there were a handful of really long suspension bridges,

but they were all taken advantage of natural rises in the land. Like, for obvious reasons, it's easier to build a bridge with the land just abruptly stops and there's like a ravine or something, well above sea level than it is to build where the land just falls away to a beach. It would just fall super, super false way to the beach. Yeah. Obviously.

Because of the horseshoe crabs. I can't, you know, I can't, if you do, the crabs, I can, I, I'm going to go into a bunch of detail when Tom's bigger than me and hasn't gunned. No, no. So the point is there was no easy place to put a bridge between Manhattan and its bro mate to be. As useful as a bridge would be,

it would be all but impossible to build. If not for the brave atrustkins, who's unrivaled and never since duplicated skills and rich making, used a trustkin arch's in the never seen duplicate skills and bridge making. He used a trust in arches in the construction of the brick and bridge. And so I should note here, we can't make arches,

it's impossible. That shape does no longer exist. Anyway, I'm sorry, I guess. I think I'm gonna make a fucking pontoon bridge that could have made a cronite bridge. And so I should mention here just how goddamn many bridges fell down back then. Okay. And none of them fell down with the regularity of suspension bridges. So the concept of the suspension bridge is so old, you can't really point to an inventor like the rope bridges

that we associate with Indiana Jones movies are a form of suspension bridge, right? It doesn't seem like that when you're driving across one because today's suspension bridges don't notice a least way without you shitting yourself with basic technology. The only difference is better ropes and better anchors. And to their credit, they're more liable to collapse than other bridges because they tend to be longer than other bridges. So if you're trying to permanently bridge a damn near impossible to bridge spend, you're going to build a suspension bridge. And if you're doing that in the 19th century, odds are that it's then going to collapse

in a horrible disaster within a few years. Just Indian Manhattan at an altar replacing one bag of garbage for another bigger, bag of garbage. We're talking about a mayoral race now. That's like a bridge collapses into the Hudson, the last thought of thousands of motorists. At least I don't have to pay the toll. On the upside, if you die in a bridge collapse, you get right into heaven using your easy pass away. Oh, Jesus Christ. That was actually by the way I didn't want to laugh at all. So understandably, nobody in power in New York City wanted to spend a ton of public money chasing a dangerous pipe dream of a bridge. But in 1866, a new bridge opened up over the Ohio river between Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky creatively dubbed the Cincinnati

Covington bridge. They convinced city planners in New York that the bridge just might be possible. Oh, that bridge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were shouting out bridges now. Is that like what we're shouting out? Oh, yeah. Yeah. They've changed the name. It's Johnny Robling bridge now. But in back then, it was the Cincinnati Covington bridge. That's the one. So that bridge, it's over a thousand feet long. It made it at the time anyway, the longest bridge in the world. Now, you should point out that this was not the first thousand plus foot long suspension bridge to cross the Ohio River and earn the title as the longest in the world. That honor goes to the wheeling suspension bridge in West Virginia, which opened a couple of years before that and then collapsed dramatic.

Oh, Jesus Christ. A few years. Yeah, much like West Virginia after mansion cuts away the entire social safety. Of course, the Brooklyn Bridge would need to cover a much longer span than the Cincinnati Covington Bridge. The main span of the Brooklyn Bridge is just shy a 1600 feet. That's 486 meters, which is more than half again as long as the longest bridge in the world at the time. But because the Cincinnati Covington Bridge was built using these big-ass stone towers instead of natural rises in the land, it was the kind of thing that could scale up that much. And the engineer who built it, John A. Robling desperately wanted to make it happen. Now, it might be weird today to think of a rock star engineer, but back in 19th century America,

when we were putting up our first skyscrapers and outpacing the entire world and monumental architecture, these guys were A-list celebrities. And since suspension bridges were so apt to fall down and so much bigger than pretty much anything else that was being built at the time, the guy successfully making those were at the top of the pecking order even among those giants. In other words, John A. Rowling was a celebrity celebrity and he didn't want his masterpiece in some shit hole city like Cincinnati that came and went a fucking super cool once a century.

Okay. It said defensive sports rejoiners. Whatever. I mean, to be fair, Noah, you and I, we are Jaguars fans. Okay, it's defensive sports rejoiner. It's whatever. I mean, to be fair, Noah, you and I, we are Jaguars fans, the collapsing suspension bridge of football. Yeah. What?

When you were Lions fan, the Lions and the Jack, they've never been business, but we know that we don't get good bridges. Like we understand our pack of order when it comes to bridges. But so I think it's a yes, Stan really. Yeah. So the key though is that John A. Robling wanted his greatest work to be in America's greatest city. So he started selling the New York City big wigs hard on the idea of the Brooklyn bridge.

Yeah. I just, I need to point out that like we used to live in a world where like poets were heroes and then engineers and inventors and doctors astronauts and. And now the most influential person in podcasting and all of broadcast media is a self described quote, fucking moron. That's the Instagram same difference six of one half dozen. Right. Problematic comment by you. So I should emphasize too that this was not a hard self or robot. So amongst the movers and shakers in New York City at the time was inevitable future citation needed subject. I can't believe we haven't done him yet. William Boss Tweet is come up to us now that I know.

Yeah, right. Mm-hmm. Are we doing? Sure. Why not? So Boss Tweet was the head of the democratic political machine. The control of the city at the time. And there was nothing that Boss Tweet loved more than gigantic highly visible public

works projects with huge price tags. Every time the city spent a dollar, he ended up with like five fucking cents of it at least. So we obviously wanted it spending as many dollars as possible. Yeah, and boss Tweed wanted a bridge because every week those Duke boys would jump over the river and get away. So in February of 1867, the city crossed the final hurdle when the state Senate passed a bill allowing for construction of a bridge over the east river to Brooklyn, provided it could be built in such a way as to not choke off commerce in New York's harbor. In other words, even the largest ships of the time had to be able to pass right underneath

that. Now, Robling was hired immediately after and by September of that year, he presented the city with his plan. It would be both the longest and tallest suspension bridge ever built. It would incorporate a slowly inclining roadway that started well inland on both sides of the bridge that would rise towards these two majestic, massive, gothic towers that he would sink into the bedrock of the river using huge casans. The main span of the bridge, like I said, between the two towers would be about 1600 feet

and the entire bridge, though, from the time it left the ground in Manhattan to the time it touched down in Brooklyn, would be over 6,000 feet long. Damn, you're two kilometers. Okay. Noah, we get it. You're a size queen. She's boy, ain't I? So it's a girthy bridge.

There's lots of lanes left, right? I'm so. It's a girthy bitch. There's lots of lanes left. Right? What a point out like if the bridge wasn't the longest bridge, like it would be not long enough. That seems like a problem. Yeah, right. So much less impressive.

I just a few fewer feet. It's much less impressive. Hey, is the bridge in yet? I don't know. Come on just a few fewer feet. It's much less impressive. Yeah. Hey, is the bridge in yet? So I don't know. Come on.

Nobody wants to hear. I really hope no is the first person to reply to your a side screen with boy. So the most striking feature of the bridge, both then and now, of course, is the giant towers with their arrow slid openings. Gally and day. Thanks. They rise 272 feet above the water because they're slits. It could be just towers or slits.

It could be. Right. Honestly, yeah. He could be a little bit of a science queen. No. Right. No. From the door.

I'm going to get it eventually. Go ahead. So they rise 272 feet above the water, which gives them. So they rise 270 feet up over the water, which gives the main span, 127 feet of clearance. And you have to keep in mind, because you're thinking of modern day New York, you kind of can't help it. At this point, the highest point in all of New York City is the spire of Trinity Church at 279 feet,

85 meters. There is no way it's taller than the garbage. I'm sorry. So, but that's the great, the next highest point would have been the mass of a ship in New York's harbor, right, or a pile of garbage, depending on the day. And it feds in the day. Right. But unlike the teeny little spire that just barely pokes its way up to that height The towers on the Brooklyn bridge are these massive broad structures that would eventually dominate the skyline 1800s al-Qaeda trying to fly one of those Victorian flappy guys, this flat needs like a couple hundred more. So everybody's all fired up about the plan and work begins in earnest. Of course, like anything being done by a committee, composed of the leaders of two independent cities,

specifications keep changing and Rowling has to keep updating his plan. So in June of 1860, 90s, out surveying something or another for a late breaking height change when he absent Unmindedly leaves his foot dangling off the dock as a fairie is parking against it his toe is crushed and because it's 1869 It's the fairy coming out of wow you didn't you didn't that didn't catch This is a guy who builds fucking bridges. It's like he's been around rivers before you know he has Oh the sneaky fairy was quiet enormous

Fairy It's 1869 so he really gets a tetanus infection And dies Within a month and then and then Everybody involved in this whole thing the city turns to his eldest son and they're like hey man Do you know anything about building bridges? in this whole thing, the city turns to his eldest son and they're like, Hey, man, do you know anything about building bridges? What the fuck is that fucking son?

Did they think bridge engineering was a genetic trait? What do they think like the bridge project like passed down in his will? Like it was a fucking gold watch. What? All right. Cool. Cool. So we're going to get fucking Eddie. Watch what? A pair of legs? All right, cool, cool, cool, cool. So we're gonna get fucking Eddie Armstrong to be going

to the bathroom at the bridge. That's gonna go up. And yeah, we'll see how that goes after a quick break for some offer, Poe of nothing. All right, guys, you heard the chief were in charge of building the world's first ever bridge. Bridge. Is that what we're saying? Did we settle on the word bridge?

Yeah, I was leaning towards walkman. You know what? We're not going to discuss this any further. Man, we're going. It's pretty great. It's stupid. It means nothing. It's a new word. Frank, it has to. If it means something, we would already be using it anyway. We need a thing that goes from over here to over there. Thoughts. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's a new word, Frank, it has to. If it means something, we would all be using it anyway. We need a thing that goes from over here to over there, thoughts. Okay, all right. What if we find a tree that's as tall as it is far, we cut it down and then like, we lay it across.

Okay, all right, I love where your head's at. But how do we measure here to there and a tree? We, uh, rope. Do we have rope yet? I feel it. Yeah. We have rope. I know that knows. And yes, that would work for the tree. But like, how are we going to get the rope from here to over there? Right? Because like if we could just go over there with rope, we wouldn't need a bridge. The walk mask. Okay.

What if we shot nobody will blow an arrow on some rope over there and then we like walked around to get it, but then instead of the tree, we just use the rope as like a walk map as a bridge. He was about to say, you guys heard that rope as a walk, a bridge. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like we put branches on it, right? Ooh. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then we can just replace the branches instead of having to find a whole new tree later. Ah, that's what I was thinking. Oh, that's awesome, man. Good thinking. Oh, that's awesome, man. Good thinking. Okay. If not walk master, I had another one. What about air plane? Because it's like a air. I can't think of any better invention for that name. Yeah, let's use that. Nice. Airplane. And we're back. When we left off, John Robling stubbed his toe to death and he's snuck up on him with

fucking violin, plucking music from from from and his son Washington was equally intelligent as he is. So the son's going to take over the extremely difficult bridge making. How's that going to go? No, I'll go ahead with the story. So okay, so to be fair to Washington, Robling, he wasn't exactly like, you know, working in some lounge in Vegas up to this point, right? He had been actively involved in the bridge building aspect of the family business pretty

much his entire life. And some historians have suggested that by the time of his death, John Robling was more of a figurehead in Washington was doing all the day-to-day work on the site. Okay, but that actually makes that other guy dying of a fucking ingrown nail or whatever, even more fucking pointless, right? You didn't even have to be there. It's fucking disgusting. Yeah, no, it's just supposed to be there that day.

And so, and one way or the other, New York City was about to find the fuck out though because suddenly the largest construction projects in American history to that point was in the hands of a guy who had technically never done this shit before. So the first step of the construction was to sink these massive casons. Now if you're not familiar with the term think about it it kind of like an anti-boat iceberg. No. That's okay. So at least once that's a good answer though. That wasn't the answer. But at least once. So you know, you interrupts with iceberg a lot. No, you know, you know, it's time. So, okay, so you know, how like if you turn a bucket upside down and then

you submerge the water like traps the air inside it. So imagine that basically on a, oh, like a gravity bomb. Sure. Yeah, exactly. So now imagine that on a massive scale. I'm going to get to it now. So you make a gigantic wooden box structure built around it and it's like built airtight with an open floor. Then you launch that into the water, ask first, you float it out to wherever you want it

to be, then you keep adding weight to the top until the motherfucker sinks, then you hook a few tunnels up from it so you can get from the surface to the case on with people and gases, you know, and then you said a crew of people around there to dig out from under it until they hit bedrock. Jesus Christ. So all the while the case on is sinking around them. So once it comes to rest, you have a nice solid flat surface to build your bridge tower on. Yeah. Also, apparently you're an evil pharaoh in the scenario. So there's a really nice, you know, compared to the other jobs in New York City. Yeah, that cell seems harley. Hey, I know we're living in a time

when a bad toe is a death sentence, but I built a wooden anti boat. I'm going to go and walk down this dark wooden underwater tunnel to a giant undersea coffin and then dig a huge hole by hand while the sea boils and rages overhead until you get to the bed. Where are you going? Where are you? It gets you really high.

It's like, uh, it's fine. Tom, that's very vivid, but Noah Heathen, I used to work in the world's most famous toy store on Christmas Eve. You could use our asses as the case on it. Yeah. That's fair. Fair. Um, so no, by the way, if you're thinking to yourself, but wait, Noah, wouldn't the

crews of people going in and out of these things every day get the bends and die? You're thinking that because you know more about decompression sickness than all of the 1870s put together. So decompression sickness, as we now know, is a medical condition caused by dissolved gases bubbling up inside body tissues during decompression. Today, we can combat this by decompressing people slowly if they're going to go away the fuck underwater. But we only know to do that because we watched a bunch of people die from this shit during the construction of things like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Eads Bridge in St. Louis. Nobody should have to die to get to St. Louis. Like that's such a waste.

Oh, we fuck is that a waste. Oh my God. Or Brooklyn for that man. Oh, sorry. Well, you that man. Oh my God. Well, you could be getting out of them, I guess. That would be, that's acceptable. That's fair. That's fair.

Okay. So, but all anybody knew at the time was that once the case sounds got way the fuck under water, people would start coming out of them feeling like shit. Sometimes they would pass out. Sometimes their muscles would seize up. They'd become temporarily paralyzed. Sometimes for days at a time. And sometimes they'd experience an even more permanent form of paralysis known as being dead.

Yeah, and I mean, even if we knew how the bends worked at the time, I think we all know how it would've worked out. Okay, guys, so you might have heard by now what the tunnel disease that we've been dealing with is actually the process of depressurization affecting the body. And look, I'm going to be honest, we don't understand everything about it yet, but it seems like if we move slowly from the work site to the surface, a lot fewer of us will die. Okay, wait, what do you mean fewer, a lot fewer?

What is it exactly? I mean, you know, this is the thing that will prevent us from dying as much. Okay, but we still might get this disease thing. It's what you're saying. Well, I mean, it's possible. Yes, but the important thing though, is to decide. It's what you're saying. Well, I mean, it's possible. Yeah, yes, but the important thing though, is that it's just not enough information here. I'm going to run up the tunnel as fast as I can.

Oh, so not enough information. Doesn't mean that you just do whatever you want. All right. All right. So if we don't follow your insane air pressure mandates, you're going to throw us in camps and murder us. But first with a woodchipper, that's what you said. Why did I didn't.

I didn't. I run up the tunnel now too. Can we let the kids run up the tunnel? I hear it's not a big deal for them. The bad stuff in the fucking kids. Why would you? Why would anyone want to risk children? Guys, guys, stop.

I have terrible news. Frank, Frank ran up the tunnel just now during this conversation and he died. Oh, well, up the tunnel just now during this conversation and, and he died. Oh, well, I guess that's very sad. Exactly. It's very sad. As his, as his family started, it's go fun. Me yet. So they sank the case on the Brooklyn side first, since it wasn't going to have to go as far to reach bedrock.

They launched that in March of 1870 filled it with compressed air and got to dig in. And I should emphasize that this work wasn't just dangerous because of the decompression sickness, right? They're counting on shit built by the 1870s to keep the east river out and they're counting on the maintenance of pretty constant air pressure to keep the water from suddenly rising up into the damp thing. Also, the whole thing is made of wood and for quite a while there, they're keeping the fucking thing lit with torches. Yeah, which is how they managed to catch it on fire in December of 1870 and delay construction

by several months, amazingly by way, nobody died in the fire though to be fair, someone might have died like of other stuff so they couldn't die in the fire. Like, okay, okay, starting now, no more gender reveal parties on the giant box that we created. Let's start it up. We're starting now. Maybe also no more torches. That seems like a mistake. That might have been involved. Okay. And like, doesn't this all seem like a lot of effort for a bridge that has to everyone's knowledge at this time, like a best if used by date of two years. Give her a take. Now, you know how I feel about the midterms. No, that hurts. Oh, yes. Two real, man, two real.

So by March of 1871, the first case on reaches its final depth of 44.5 feet, at which point they go ahead, fill the hollow parts with concrete. The case on the Manhattan side, though, would have to go a hell of a lot deeper, which means the instances of decompression sickness would be way more frequent. In all, more than a hundred workers would be treated for it, and there would, and three of them would die. Among the hardest hit survivors of this condition was Washington Robling himself, who went in and out of the case on several times a day. Sometimes things got so bad for him that he was ultimately bedridden and had to supervise most of the bridge's construction through a telescope from a nearby apartment. And he sees a murder across the street. It's a whole thing. You said hundreds of them were treated.

It's got to be way more that actually got fucked up by it. Because this is like 1800s that are like, I got the bad eye, one eyes outside of the face. And then you get treated, you know, that's pretty much everybody. Yeah, pretty much everybody got sick of it. Yeah, some whiskey on it. Sun, you'll be just a body. Now I should at least mention the possibility that Washington's wife, Emily deserves the

majority of the credit for building the Brooklyn bridge. She would spend 11 years communicating Washington's instructions to a supervisor's dictating complex designs. And otherwise taking over the majority of the chief engineer's duties. Of course, if she actually was the brains behind the operation, she'd still have to hide it behind her absentee husband one way or the other. So there are a lot of people who think that she was actually doing all this work and then just giving her husband credit so people wouldn't freak the fuck out.

She was absolutely definitely smart enough to do it. According to the wiki, she quote, understood mathematics, calculations of catenary curves, strength of material, bridge specifications, and the intricacies of cable construction to end quote. So it's entirely possible that she was actually the real chief engineer. This goes badly. It's like 50 50. She does like a math too hard and gets thrown in the river with a bag of rocks.

Or maybe Washington just gave her the good at bridge building amulet that he's got. So they sent the man had in case on never actually hit bedrock with it. Like to this day, right? They kept getting ever more compressed sand that was ever harder to chip away at. And at a certain point, they're like, guys, if it's this hard for us to dig into, it'll hold up a fucking bridge. So they just stop there.

Oh, no, that sounds lazy as all hell. But the fact that the bridge is still there with its original towers sitting on its original case on strongly suggests that they were right. Okay, but they just went with like, hey, what's the worst that can happen? Building the largest engineered structure of its time on a foundation made on an underwater sandbox. Well, but they had the amulet. So the towers came, came next. They took four years to complete and interestingly enough, at this point, opposition to the bridge pretty much disappears. Right? Until then, there

was a vocal minority within the city that was pushing back against the project, citing high cost, potential disruptions to the harbor. But once people started to see these massive towers, right, just out of the river, they quickly became a symbol of the city's strength. They pretty much everybody was eager to see the thing complete it. That phase of the work ended in July of 1876 without any fires, floods or new medical mysteries. Think of all the segregating we can do with this bridge guys. What they never, there was never any segregation between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

What? Now, the other big construction project at the time was the far less visible, but no less monumental construction of the massive anchorages on either side of the bridge that we're going to actually hold the cables. Now these things are architectural marvels of their own, but suffice to say that for the purposes of this story, they're very large, heavy, vaulted basin rebuilding that will ultimately anchor the huge cables that hold the bridge's weight. And honestly, just one of these motherfuckers would have been the most impressive structure

and pretty much any American city of the time. Okay, but again, Noah, the qualifier at the time comes after you've spent time explaining to us that bridge collapses were distressingly commonplace. So like, big, heavy thing you tie your bridge to, that might seem like more of an accomplishment than it should. That's what's amazing. Time is as the engineers would make these big bridges, they would say, okay, but don't have anyone march across the Nunes and okay, no parades. Like, the reals for else, they would have to tell them that.

Do them steps. We're doing do in steps, guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah safety test of the wire, master mechanic, E.F. Farington became the first person to cross the bridge from one tower to the other. He made that journey in a chair that was pulled along the wire by a steam engine and a crowd of us. 10,000 people came up to see it happen. It feels like they made that harder than it needed to be. That's the right.

That's a nice trash. It's like a little cage. It's like a bull rolled down. What's the big red X for? Nobody said that the engineer was a coyote. This is why the right now, after that, they, they strung a second wire across and made one of the most rickety S terrifying looking foot ridges that you can imagine.

And, and that was for the workers to use. So it didn't have to be good. Within a year, that foot bridge was unofficially open to the public. You needed a visitor's pass, but you could walk across and that ended though when some dude had a seizure and almost fell off. Okay. That really fast EMU is having no problems with it. I think it's a, I think we go across. The red X and stuff. There's the fuse. That seems weird, but look at the bird.

Look at the bird. It's like super fast. No problem. We go fast. Um, so I should point out to that during the construction of the bridge, Tammany Hall fell and boss tweed's corruption became public knowledge. So suddenly voters were sure that the reason the bridge wasn't done yet was because of grift. Every politician was demanding audits of the bridge. Every reporter was digging for evidence of corruption related to it and every move on the bridge's board was being scrutinized. And for good reason, right? Like so up until that time, the board had been corrupt and was stealing money left

and right. And I know it's hard to air too far on the side of anti corruption, but they kind of managed to do it. So the robling family's fortune came not from bridge construction, but from being the nation's chief supplier of steel wire. Exactly the kind that you would use to construct suspension bridges. But because of the anti-corruption fervor, nobody liked the idea of awarding the bazillion dollar wire contract

to the chief engineer's family business. Yeah, wire fraud. That's great. That's the only thing you said this whole episode of the I'm right. I can pay checks all day. That's great. Well, I agree. Because it's a thing separately. Yeah, so the problem with that though is that there was no other company in the country that could really supply the amount of high quality wire that they needed. So instead, they ended up with low quality wire because the guy that they hired to provide the wire was at least as corrupt as boss.

But with all that competence to go with it, you know, they never should have settled for low quality wire. If I would have been there, the Brooklyn Bridge would have been made out of monster cables. I sold that shit. We can do us. Tom. Exactly. What they got? So despite of the controversy and issues with the subpar wire, the cables

went up relatively quickly. And by 1879, work began on the superstructure by 1883. There was a full-brown bridge. Washington, Robyn was unable to attend the big grand opening, but Emily was there. And she got the honor of being the first person to officially cross the bridge, whatever that held that. He's like workers have been walking back and forth across it for months by then. But whatever, the whole city shut down for the occasion, the mayor declared it a citywide holiday and then president Chester A. Arthur even showed up for the festivities. I do hear by Chris at boo. Nobody knows who the fuck you are.

Get out of here. So the final price tag of the project was $5 million. That'd be about 413 million in today's money. But more than that, it cost the lives of 27 men along the way. Another 12 deaths were added only a few days after the grand opening when a woman fell down a stairway screamed and caused a stampede that led to at least a dozen people being crushed to death. Okay.

Everybody thinks they're in a fucking movie. You're not going to be the one who dives off the falling bridge at the last second. That's never going to be you. Don't start stampede's thinking it might be. Exactly. Now, the Brooklyn Bridge's death toll continued to climb as the bridge became a favorite destination for the suicidal. The Wikipedia admits that we don't exactly have the numbers for that one.

Yeah, no offense to Wikipedia, but I feel like people who throw themselves off your structure shouldn't really count as their structure. I agree. I agree. I don't know if it's sort of the wiki. throw themselves off your structure. Shouldn't really count your structure. I agree. I agree. I don't know if it's so that's the wiki. So when it opened, the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest bridge in the world by over a hundred meters, and it retained that record, at least for suspension bridges, until the Williamsburg Bridge, much like an asshole, prices right, contested, edging somebody up and open up a mile north with like two more of main span of like you right. The Brooklyn bridge was so well put together that it didn't

need any major upgrades until 1948 and still carries over a hundred thousand people a day between Brooklyn and Manhattan. And as to the bridges, most enduring legend, I regret to say that it really is just a legend, according to Richard Hall, author of the Brooklyn Bridge, a cultural history quote, no evidence exists that the bridge has ever been sold to a gullible outlander. Oh, you hate to see that. Yeah. Until today, well, if you have to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? When Eli goes, we can assign his essays to his kit. And are you ready for the quiz?

Sure. Why not? All right. Now, what song did they play at the opening ceremony of the Brooklyn Bridge? A can't to live her madly, love herly. I believe her mad love for madly. I don't know. It's I tried. Be a believer to be. That's a hard. Be up and around the bends. See that's big old abutment or D case on Ross. Kson Ross or a I'm sorry jokes are difficult.

I can't believe her mad that that's brilliant, but it is a suspension bridge. So I'm going to go with B up around the fence. Oh, you knew you knew it's definitely up around the beds. Yeah, just engineering wise, it doesn't even make sense. It's dumb to say exactly. Different, different type of bridge. Just listen to the essay, maybe. Jesus.

It feels, I feel stupid now. God. No. Lesson known. All right, Noah, less than anyone think that after this, we nailed the whole no more collapsing suspension bridges thing. How long did Tacoma suspension bridge? It was by the way, the third largest in the world when it was constructed in 1940.

For a minute anyway, yeah, is the answer a four months? B four fucking months. Jesus, see, it ripped itself to shreds on fucking video in four months. Oh, de seriously, it opened in July and collapsed in November or E the workers nicknamed it Galloping Gertie because the damn thing oscillated so violently while they built it. That's the thing though is that like your four months is kind of kind of overstating it right because yeah, it didn't collapse for four months, but it was too dangerous to drive over after like three fucking days.

And yet there were still cars on it when it collapsed. Yeah, right. We're about to get an email. Somebody's grandpa tried to like sled on the oscillating wave and got thrown in the water and died and we're assholes now somehow. But Tom, I'm going to go with F all of the above. It is indeed. All right. No, they're making a movie about the building of the Brooklyn bridge. What should they call it? Hey, Brooklyn bridge it, Jones is not only good.

Brooklyn Bridge, Trouble in Little China. What's the big and bridge? It's a stretch. It's a stretch. Brooklyn Bridgerton. No, it's a, yeah, I was going gonna say, you peaked early on that one though. I'm gonna go with A, Brooklyn Bridget, no Jones Diary. Yes, correct.

Nice job, you nailed it. No, you've won this. Awesome. Awesome. You get to pick something, right? All right, well, Tom made fun of the Atraskin, so he has to do the essay next week. Goddamn it. There we go.

All right, well for Tom, Noah, Cecil and Eli, I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can hear Tom and Cecil on cognitive distance, and you can hear Eli, Noah, and myself on God-Offal movies,

The Skating Atheist, The Skeptocrat, and D&D Minus. And if you'd like to buy a bridge, you can make a perpsodonation. We're trying to find a solution. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If you'd like to get in bridge, give me a car up so donation. Hey, try not to buy this. That's a good question. If you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with us on social media,

and take a look at the show notes, check out citationpod.com. Now, the guy explained that you're not actually allowed to collect tolls from it, but if you're interested, he can get people on the blockchain, and those people will give you a percentage of their bridge token.

Sorry, what's the blockchain? Oh, it's a literal bunch of blocks, chain together. That's what the guy told us. Awesome. I see. Do you like it? It's in the parking lot.