EAST RIVER BRIDGE.
Our Land and Country1892
No more amazing structural object greets the eye in America's
greatest city than the East River Bridge, which connects that
city with Brooklyn. Nothing that can here be said can add to the
force of the graphic descriptions already given by thousands of
pens, extolling this wonderful product of science and mechanism.
A few direct figures will here suffice: Total length of the bridge,
5,989 feet; width, 85 feet; number of cables, 4; diameter of each
cable, 15¾ inches; length of wire in four cables, 14,361
miles; ultimate strength of each cable, 12,200 tons; cable-making
commenced June 11, 1877; the bridge was opened May 24, 1883, and
cost about $15,000,000.
It is thus the largest bridge of its kind in this or any other
country, and, in addition to its vast practical use as a thoroughfare
between those two great cities, it affords unrivalled harbor-views
of great expanse and distance. That its financial success has
been such as to fully realize the expectations of its projectors,
is seen in the fact that a recent annual report shows the number
of foot and car passengers during that year to have been, in round
numbers, 41,000,000; the receipts from all sources, $1,240,000;
and the expenditures, $1,075,000. It is an interesting fact that
nowhere in the history of engineering work have caissons of such
prodigious size been conceived, that for the building of the pier
on the New York side weighing some seven thousand tons, with a
concrete filling of eight thousand tons. And, while Brooklyn has
erected the Stranahan statue in honor of the promoter of her magnificent
park, and New York to Morse and other benefactors, the name of
Roebling, has yet to be enshrined in monumental bronze or marble
by these cities.
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