Brooklyn Brigde New York by Bianca Hinnen

About "Brooklyn Brigde New York"

by Bianca Hinnen

About the artwork

Built in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge is a suspension bridge with elements of a cable-stayed bridge in New York in the United States. It crosses the East River and connects Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, just like the Manhattan Bridge. The architects were John Roebling and his son Washington Roebling. Washington's wife, Emily Warren Roebling, took actual charge of completing the bridge when her husband, a victim of caisson disease, was no longer able to do so.

The bridge is 1825 feet long, and its largest span is 486 feet. As a result, the bridge had the longest span in the world until the construction of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903. In 2008, it was the 64th suspension bridge in the world in terms of span.

During construction of the bridge, 27 workers died from falling off the cables or from caisson disease from working below the water level on the pylons.

The completion of the bridge and its record length created a new conception of New York's urban scale. The bridge reveals the contrast between the old materials and the materials of the new era, the massive girders and the "fine" cabling that carries the road surface.

Also on the Brooklyn Bridge is a city seal of Dutch origin dating from 1834 that reads "Eendraght Maakt Magt" (Unity makes power).

On May 30, 1883, six days after the opening of Brooklyn Bridge, a false rumor about the poor quality of the bridge caused panic among pedestrians and twelve people were killed in the crash; as a result, people lost confidence in the bridge. To remedy this, Barnum had twenty-one elephants (including Jumbo) and seventeen camels from his local circus walk across the bridge on May 17, 1884.