The history of New York's' Brooklyn Bridge

Extract

[...] The History of New York's' Brooklyn Bridge The New York Skyline is a thing of beauty, and has been for many years. People from all over the world come to New York to marvel at its impressive and awesome structure, from the buildings to the bridges. As the greatest city in the world, New York was built to amaze and bedazzle. No landmark does that better than the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. [...]

[...] According to doctors, “symptoms may spread from the feet up and may be accompanied by ascending weakness or paralysis and include girdling abdominal or chest pain” (Pulley). However, aside from the complications that arose, the Brooklyn Bridge's architecture is impressive, even by current day standards. The towers, particularly, are a masterpiece. For several years, the towers were the tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere, and to this day they have not been replaced. The style they were constructed in was based on the Gothic movement, which is characterized by pointed arches above the passageways through the stone towers. [...]

[...] However, to be on the safe side, Roebling installed an additional 250 cables, and diagonal cables. These diagonal cables were put in from the towers to the deck, meant to solidify and stiffen the structure of the bridge. Although deemed useless and unnecessary, these cables were kept, because they added to the special allure of the bridge, and heightened its imposing beauty. Even to this day, the Brooklyn Bridge was an expensive venture, costing nearly $ 15.5 million to complete. [...]

[...] There were many difficulties and accidents in the process of building the Brooklyn Bridge. While many workers died from accidents and construction malfunctions, a serious illness gripped almost all the workers that were associated with the construction of the caissons. Statistics claim that the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, three people died and fifteen percent of those who got the bends were paralyzed to some degree” (Feuerstein). Fear of the bends was what caused Roebling to halt the excavation of the New York caisson; he estimated that about eighty men would die if he tried to excavate any further. [...]