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Part 1

28 TheStructuralEngineer Professional guidance

March 2015 Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge:

tragedy overcome (part 1)
S Figure 1
Brooklyn Bridge under construction

This month, to mark

International Women’s Day,
Sean Brady presents the
first of a two-part article
exploring the construction
of the Brooklyn Bridge
and the crucial role Emily
Warren Roebling played in
making it a reality.

REX
Introduction The bridge remained a concept for the below the waterline on the Brooklyn side,
The winter of 1852 was particularly bitter next 14 years, through the Civil War and the but a worrying 22m below the waterline on
in New York City1. For days, the frozen assassination of Abraham Lincoln, before the New York side. No bridge had ever been
East River paralysed ferry traffic between the winter of 1866 again froze the East constructed at such depths1.
Manhattan and Brooklyn. On one ferry – River. By this time, Brooklyn had swelled to The bridge’s suspension cables would be
stranded for hours in the freezing, foggy 400 000 inhabitants, and the river remained revolutionary – for the first time, they would
haze – John Roebling, a bridge engineer, blocked for weeks, preventing more than be made entirely of steel. The deck would
stood beside his 15-year-old son, Washington. 1000 ferry crossings per day1. There were be over 24m wide, and Roebling declared
Staring at the silhouetted hulks, Roebling calls for action. Roebling was working on his that the structure, “when constructed in
would conceive of a bridge to cross the famed Cincinnati Bridge when he heard his accordance with my designs, will not only
river, a river that many simply believed un- East River bridge concept was finally under be the greatest bridge in existence, but it
crossable. The realisation of his vision would consideration. The following year the New will be the greatest engineering work of the
culminate in one of the most iconic structural York Bridge Company was formed to deliver continent and of the age”2.
engineering achievements in history, would the bridge and its Trustees appointed John Tragedy, however, would intervene. In
test the physical and mental resolve of the Roebling as chief engineer. June 1869, while surveying positions for
Roebling family, and would result in Emily Three months later he presented plans the Brooklyn tower, Roebling was injured
Warren Roebling, through her intellect and for his suspension bridge. It would be truly in a freak accident. He was standing on
courage, making an historic contribution to monumental. The bridge was over 1800m the Fulton slipway when a ferry lost control
the structural engineering profession, with long and its deck would be supported by four and crashed into the slipway. His foot was
her name becoming forever synonymous with cables suspended between two limestone crushed. Doctors wanted to amputate his
what would become known as the Brooklyn and granite towers. Between the towers, toes. Roebling refused anaesthetic and the
Bridge. it had a span of 480m – more than twice operation was performed without it2. Then he
as long as Thomas Telford’s Menai Straits dismissed his doctors in order to manage his
John Roebling Bridge (176m) completed in Wales and longer own treatment, but over the next few days
John Augustus Roebling was born in than the record-breaking 310m span of his condition deteriorated. He died on the 22
Mühlhausen in Germany in 1806, graduated the Wheeling Bridge in West Virginia. Many July 1869. With Roebling’s death, the project
with a degree in civil engineering in 1826, engineers thought Roebling’s proposed span itself hung in the balance.
and, in 1831, emigrated to the New World2. By impossible.
that day on the East River he had completed The bridge’s towers would be 84m Washington Roebling
a number of bridges in the USA, including a high, considerably higher than any other John Roebling’s son, Washington, had come
suspension bridge in Pittsburgh in 1845. Once structure on the New York skyline – a sight a long way from the 15-year-old boy standing
off the ferry he returned to his family home we, no doubt, struggle to visualise today1. beside his father on the East River ferry. He
in Trenton, New Jersey, and developed the The New York tower alone would contain had become an engineer, graduating from
concept for a bridge to connect Manhattan an estimated 80 000t of limestone and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York
and Brooklyn. It would be the longest granite. The towers would be supported in 1857. He had assisted his father on the
suspension bridge in the world2. on bedrock, which was estimated at 12m design and construction of the Allegheny

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 www.thestructuralengineer.org

29

Aqueduct and the Cincinnati Bridge, and he walls were 2.7m thick at the top and they and the pressure in the caisson dropped
had enlisted in the Union Army in 1861. He tapered to just 200mm thick at the base1. dramatically, suddenly applying very large
saw action, fought at Gettysburg, and in 1865 This ‘sharp’ edge allowed the caisson to cut loads to the caisson structure, with risk of
married Emily Warren, the daughter of a well- through the mud as the material inside was damage. Roebling himself was in the caisson
respected but not particularly wealthy family3. removed. Driving the caisson downwards was when this incident occurred. Fire was also a
When his father was named chief engineer the weight of the limestone and granite tower constant threat, with the timber roof of the
for the bridge, he went back to work for him. being simultaneously constructed above. caisson being particularly vulnerable, but by
One of his first tasks was to spend a year This process continued until the caisson early 1871 the caisson hit rock and concrete
travelling in Europe with Emily to inspect the struck rock, at which time the void in the was pumped into the chamber void, forming
use of caisson technology in the construction caisson was filled with concrete and it a permanent base to the partially completed
of bridge towers below the waterline – a became part of the structure. tower. Work now turned to the caisson on
technique his father planned to utilise in It was a hellish workplace, comparable with the New York side, a much more formidable
New York. By the time of his father’s death in Dante’s inferno1. In the humid air, lit by calcium task due to the expected rock depth of 22m,
1869, he had become intimately involved with lights, with temperatures of more than 25°C, almost twice that of the Brooklyn side.
the bridge. The New York Bridge Company workers, many naked from the waist up, dug
Trustees agreed that he was the man for out mud and boulders to be extracted by a New York tower
the job, and in August 1869, Washington scoop to a waiting barge (Figure 3). The size It was from Europe that Washington Roebling
Roebling, then 32 years old, was appointed of these boulders was a significant issue – first heard about ‘caisson disease’2. There
chief engineer. some were as long as 3m – and when the were reports of workers experiencing
perimeter of the caisson met these boulders violent pain after completing work shifts in
Brooklyn tower they had to be broken up by hand and pulled caissons. In some cases, paralysis or death
Roebling’s first task was to construct out of the way. The work was painfully slow resulted. Little was known about the disease,
the bridge towers (Figure 1). Work on the and the caisson descended by less than but it appeared to occur more frequently
Brooklyn tower began in March 1870, when a 6in. per week. To speed things up, Roebling at greater depths – where the air pressure
large caisson was launched and lowered into would have to resort to the use of dynamite that the workers were required to labour in
the East River. The caisson can be visualised – risky, given the cramped environment – to was higher. While there had been only a few
as a 50m by 30m upturned wooden box or break open the rock. It worked and progress cases of the disease during the construction
‘diving bell’ that was lowered to the riverbed accelerated to 18in. per week1. of the Brooklyn tower, Roebling was more
(Figure 2). Pneumatic pressure was then The workers also had to contend with concerned about the New York tower and its
applied and maintained to drive all water blowouts, where compressed air would deeper foundations.
from the caisson, essentially leaving an suddenly escape at some point along the Work in the caisson began in September
encapsulated ‘dry’ space. Inside this space, caisson permitter, spraying a jet of water and 1871, and at a depth of 15m the first cases
which was larger than four tennis courts, mud 150m high above the river, only to rain of caisson disease became evident. Some
over 100 men could dig out the riverbed1. As down on those working on the construction men, once leaving the caisson, suffered
material was removed, the caisson moved of the tower above. When this happened the headaches, violent pain and cramps in limbs.
downwards into the exposed hole, until it caisson would partially flood, with the real risk The pain was described by some workers
finally reached bedrock. that the river would break in completely. On as feeling like having flesh ripped from every
The caisson had a thick timber roof, its one occasion, a supply shaft door burst open bone1. They described the headaches as like

 Figure 2
GETTY

Diagram of caisson

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 ›
Part 1

30 TheStructuralEngineer Professional guidance

March 2015 Brooklyn Bridge

being shot. The disease was soon nicknamed ‘the bends’ because
those afflicted would suddenly bend over in pain.
Roebling pressed on, the caisson reached 18m deep, and the
disease began to afflict more workers and increase in severity:
men began suffering paralysis. By 21m deep men were starting to
die. Roebling had engaged Dr Andrew Smith to assist and try to
understand the disease, but it remained elusive and no management
strategy became apparent. His best suggestion was that the men
should spend longer ‘decompressing’ as they left the caisson.
Smith was on the right track. Caisson disease – as we now know – is
caused when the nitrogen that is in solution form in our bloodstream is
liberated and turns into gaseous form when subject to rapid decreases
in atmospheric pressure. This gas forms bubbles that can block the
oxygen supply in our bloodstream. When it occurs in the limbs, it
results in severe pain; but when it happens in the spinal cord or brain,
the consequences are lethal. Allowing more time for decompression
gives the body more time to dissipate the nitrogen through the lungs,
thus preventing formation of the harmful bubbles. But all of this wasn’t
known at the time, and as the construction continued, the incidence of
injuries, paralysis, and death mounted.
At a depth of 24m, workers hit a layer of compacted sand and
gravel that was almost impossible to remove. Roebling faced a tough
decision. Did he press on to bedrock as he and his father had originally
envisaged? Or did he cease evacuation, leaving this the final resting
place for the New York tower? To press on would risk further paralysis
and death – Roebling estimated possibly 100 lives – but to stop now
required him to evaluate whether the ground was strong enough to
support the tower2. If it wasn’t, subsidence would be a real issue.
Roebling chose to stop, and time would bear out the wisdom of his
decision. The New York caisson was completed in 1872, two years
after the commencement of construction and three years since the

CORBIS
death of John Roebling.

Catastrophe N Figure 3
Workers descend into caisson and labour in hot, humid conditions
Progress, however, would come at a high cost – not only to the workers
but to Washington Roebling himself. While building the first caisson on caisson was structurally sound.
the Brooklyn side, on the night of 1 December 1870, when the caisson However, after the completion of the second caisson on the New
was 13m deep – almost at its final depth – the caisson’s timber roof York side, Roebling would again be stricken by the bends, but this
caught fire. Slowly, this small fire, which initially went unnoticed, began time much worse than the attack while fighting the fire. He collapsed,
to work its way into the roof of the caisson. If the fire spread too far, paralysis set in, and he was bedridden and in constant pain. Doctors
it would structurally compromise the base of the tower – Roebling did not believe he would survive the night2. The whole project was now
estimated that the roof of the caisson was supporting over 25 000t of again in jeopardy, with the demise of another chief engineer expected.
limestone and granite. Getting the fire out was paramount, but this was It is here, however, that the real human story begins. It is here that
an immensely difficult task because at this stage it had wound its way Roebling defies the odds and fights on to see through the completion
up into the timbers and it was impossible to see or to determine how of the bridge. And, importantly, it is here that Emily Warren Roebling
far into the roof it had progressed. really enters our story.
Roebling threw himself at the problem. He spent almost a straight
day and night in the caisson1. Holes were drilled in the timber to check Sean Brady is the managing director of Brady Heywood
the progression of the fire, but they only introduced oxygen and (www.bradyheywood.com.au), based in Brisbane, Australia. The firm
fanned the flames. Water was sprayed continuously at the roof. Finally provides forensic and investigative structural engineering services and
the fire appeared to be out. Shockingly, with the problem resolved, specialises in determining the cause of engineering failure and non-
Roebling collapsed; he had started to notice he had developed some performance.
paralysis in his limbs. He was taken home to rest, but after three hours Follow on Twitter @BradyHeywood
he was called for again. The fire was still burning. Worse, it was now
out of control.
He got up and went back to the site, he only had one option REFERENCES:
available: flood the caisson and hope the rising water could extinguish 1) Cadbury D. (2004) Seven wonders of the industrial world, London,
the fire before it burned through the roof. It was a risky option, there UK: HarperCollins Publishers
was no guarantee water could be pumped into the caisson at the
same rate that air could be released – the caisson itself could collapse 2) McCullough D. G. (2001) The great bridge: the epic story of the building of the
Brooklyn Bridge, New York, USA: Simon & Schuster
or be irreparably damaged. It took seven hours to flood it using fire
engines, fire boats and tugs. An exhausted Roebling stayed to watch. 3) Weingardt R. G. (2005) Engineering legends: great American civil engineers:
They waited. Two and a half days later they pumped the water out and 32 profiles of inspiration and achievement, Reston, USA: American Society of
went to inspect. The water had done its job. The fire was out and the Civil Engineers

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