The Great Bridge (Paperback)

In the years around 1870, when the project was first undertaken, the concept of building an unprecedented bridge to span the East River between the great cities of Manhattan and Brooklyn required a vision and determination comparable to that which went into the building of the great cathedrals. Throughout the fourteen years of its construction, the odds against the successful completion of the bridge seemed staggering. Bodies were crushed and broken, lives lost, political empires fell, and surges of public emotion constantly threatened the project. But this is not merely the saga of an engineering miracle; it is a sweeping narrative of the social climate of the time and of the heroes and rascals who had a hand in either constructing or exploiting the surpassing enterprise.

 
Annotation:
This work details the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, which connects Manhattan to Brooklyn across the East River. Not only does the author survey the construction of this amazing structure, he places the event within its historical and cultural context, offering a story of life in New York City toward the close of the 19th century. John Augustus Roebling, a foreign-born engineer, took on this most ambitious of his projects to date, after having built suspension bridges in several other U.S. cities. His son, Washington Augustus, took over after his father's death in 1869. McCullough's book was published in 1983, in celebration of the centennial of the bridge's completion.