NEW YORK (AP) - It was so singular a marvel, so ambitious a feat, that its opening drew the president and a crowd of thousands. A leading national magazine said it stood poised to become “our most durable monument.”
Some 125 years later, the Brooklyn Bridge remains a powerful symbol of engineering might and imagination, and a revered fixture of the nation’s largest city.
And it can still draw a crowd. Thousands of people were at the bridge’s 125th birthday blowout yesterday , with fireworks, a Navy flyover, a colorful new lighting scheme and the debut of a tribute song scheduled to honor the storied span. It opened on May 24, 1883.
“It’s an icon for not only New York, but for America,” said Brooklyn’s official historian, Ron Schweiger.
The 6,000-foot-long landmark is one of the nation’s oldest suspension bridges and among its most treasured.
Tourists flock to see its interplay of architectural grace and muscle and its commanding views of the Manhattan skyline. Historians note its role in shaping the city: It linked Manhattan with what was then a largely rural Brooklyn, helping spur a Brooklyn growth spurt, Mr. Schweiger said. Brooklyn’s population grew by 42 percent between 1880 and 1890, while Manhattan’s grew by about 26 percent, census figures show.
Engineers laud the bridge’s strength and innovation.
“There was nothing like this before, at least nothing like this that was of this scale built before,” said Serafim Arzoumanidis, a New York-based engineer and bridge designer.
The Brooklyn Bridge is roughly six times as long as the biggest earlier bridge of its type, and its Gothic-arched stone towers and web of steel cables are technically impressive even by today’s standards, he said.
Building the bridge took 13 years, cost $15 million and claimed several lives, including that of its celebrated designer, John Roebling. He succumbed to an infection after being hurt while looking over the site. His son, Washington Roebling, took over the project.
The bridge now carries about 126,000 cars per day, at the city’s last count in 2006, and is used by countless cyclists and pedestrians. It has been refurbished repeatedly, and some parts have been strengthened. But the towers, main cables and main beams are original.
The city plans to spend $250 million to $300 million fixing the ramps and painting the bridge, starting early next year.
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