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Friday, September 28, 2018

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge to Lower Manhattan

Eric and I turned off of Atlantic Avenue onto Boerum Place, which leads to Brooklyn Bridge Promenade





Follow the Brooklyn Bridge
signs...




Flowering separate the
bike path from traffic.






The Williamsburg Bridge is to
the east.
  



The walkway/bike path, with
 concrete & metal fencing keep
 car traffic separate from those
 on foot & on bicycle.










A stairway provides access
to Washington Street.




We are on the approach ramp
to the Bridge.










120,000 vehicles & 4,000
pedestrians cross the 
Bridge per day







Eric & I stop for a
selfie.






There's a lot of photography as we walk along the Bridge.

 



This historic Bridge's construction
was riven with politics, graft &
speculation on the fitness of
the Engineer in Charge.










There was talk of building a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan for years.  Brooklyn and Manhattan were separated in the early winter as ice formed on the East River and broke up in the spring.  Commerce and transportation were interrupted, which no one wanted

John Roebling's design was accepted and by land was acquired and surveyed for the project.  While surveying for the Bridge John Roebling was injured and died three weeks later.  His son, Washington Roebling, took over as Chief Engineer.  Construction started in 1869.

While working in the caissons to create the Bridge footings, men became ill.  Some died after leaving their work.  Washington Roebling went down into the caissons repeatedly and became ill from Decompression Sickness.  The illness kept him home-bound and questions arose about his supervision of this massive construction project.  His wife, Emily, recorded her husband's instructions and brought them to the engineers and laborers until the Bridge was finished.  

The project was overseen by a Board of Trustees.  Some of the members were highly political.  There were rumors of graft.  During this massive project there was concern about use of shoddy materials.  The contractor providing the that were wound together to make the suspension cables providing substandard wire after some of the cables were strung.

John A. Roebling "over designed" the Brooklyn Bridge.  The defective wires in Bridge cables were not removed and remade.  The Bridge opened on May 24, 1883.  Emily Roebling was the first person to cross the bridge.  






I look down at three lanes
of traffic heading to
Manhattan.





I admire the steel cabling
on this suspension Bridge.















Standing beneath the arch, I
 look out at the suspension
cables & Manhattan in the
distance.




 



Eric & I rejoin the crowd
on our westward walk.












Eric & I talked about the "fans" we see in the distance.  Eric thinks they were added to keep visitors from climbing up onto the suspension cables.

I think of the scene in Saturday Night Fever when Bobby C shimmies up the cables in the Verrazano Bridge and falls to his death.





Visitors caught adding locks
to the Bridge receive fines
of $100.00.






Hundreds of "Locks of Love" were removed from Pont des Artes Bridge in Paris in an effort to preserve the historic bridge.





We pass pedestrians
coming from Manhattan.






This stairway allows access
 to streets below in
Manhattan.













Vendors line this end of
the Brooklyn Bridge
Promenade.











Eric and I snack on Kibbee Balls. Falafal and Spinach Pie from Sahadi Import Co. as we walk to East River Ferry Terminal.  

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