Iconic Collaborations: The Bridges of New York

In this edition of our Iconic Collaborations series, we will look at an important aspect of New York City’s urban landscape, its bridges. These structures are essential to the daily lives of New Yorkers and provide access between the city’s boroughs to more than a million people every day. 

New York is home to over 750 bridges and tunnels in New York and some contemporary bridges are nearly 200 years old. What bridges cross New York? How did these projects come together? And what engineering, architecture, and planning principles helped them develop over time? 

These are some of the questions we will answer in this installation of our Iconic Collaborations series, which tracks the development of architecture’s intersection with planning and engineering.

Part 1: Great Beginnings 1880-1900

Bridges have existed for hundreds of years in the islands and peninsulas that make up what are now the five boroughs of New York City. But in the 1850s, new steel production methods were developed, facilitating and accelerating the boom of population in the decades after the American Civil War. 

The Brooklyn Bridge

The most significant of the bridges to go up in the rush to connect the growing population centers in the area was the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883. 

The Brooklyn Bridge was funded by a combination of public and private interests and would replace the ferry lines that were the prominent mode of transport between Manhattan and Brooklyn as commerce increased between the two cities.

From the start, the engineers and architects had to figure out ways to create connections between the city to facilitate commerce. Planning ahead for this was a massive task. Today, architects can align projects to needs and collate budgets with required capacity and possible scales. 

Back then, the planners and engineers had no idea how large New York City would become, but still, Bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge remain in use, facilitating massive amounts of traffic. 

But at the time, engineers could only guess at the capacity and needs of the bridge, focusing mostly on how to actually put the massive project together, relying on new construction materials such as reinforced concrete. 

For the planner and designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, John A. Roebling and his son Washington, the technical needs of the bridge were balanced with the desire to create beautiful architecture that represented the culture and strength of the city. 

“The work which is about to be done will give New York City an additional proof that the march of improvement is irresistible,” said Roebling, who died before the completion of the bridge.

It took nearly 600 workers nearly 14 years to complete the project using large boxes sunk into the river and filled with air to clear away water and debris so concrete could be poured for its massive foundations. 

At the time of its completion, it was the largest suspension bridge in the world and the tallest structure in the Western Hemisphere, signaling a new era of commerce and architecture. 

The bridge showed for the first time the true potential of both reinforced concrete and steel in construction and signaled to the world that the age of the modern city had come. 

Financing and Legislators 

Though other large-scale building projects in modern cities were beginning to take shape, the Brooklyn Bridge was a signpost for the coming of the modern world. 

For the first time, massive agreements and plans between private parties, municipalities, engineers, and architects had to be established in order to fulfill the vision of a project., 

Today, we have been perfecting the legacy of these planning endeavors. The more planning and lining up is done beforehand, the easier it is to get all of the shareholders on board. 

👉 Learn how THW kicks off planning with Arcol

Though they were working with analog technologies, the engineering and aesthetics of the Brooklyn Bridge had to be well-established before beginning.

First, the engineers needed to show that the bridge could support the weight of its routeway with a complex steel cable and tower system. It would need to be strong enough to facilitate the vehicle and pedestrian traffic over the bridge, which at the time consisted mostly of walking and horse-drawn vehicles and an elevated trolley track. 

The project suffered from a lack of quality materials, worker safety, and opposition from members of the community who saw the bridge as being too expensive. 

However, the plans initially laid out, as well as a famous party hosted by the engineers to celebrate the bridge’s progress, allowed the project to go forward. 

It showed the importance of planning and some of the shortcomings, as things had to be changed late in the project, such as the bridge height so ships could travel underneath. 

Engineers, architects and fabricators showcased the importance of interdisciplinary communication and problem-solving in overcoming complex challenges. 

This collaborative approach emphasized the need for an efficient workflow, careful planning, and risk management, which are essential components in contemporary architectural logistics. 👉 Learn how your team can simplify collaboration with Arcol.

We’ve come a long way, but these early experimentations in projects using modern materials at monumental scales with multiple stakeholders outline some of the problems we still deal with today. 

Most of the other bridges completed during this time period were standard arch bridges, and much smaller than the Brooklyn Bridge, but as the city expanded and automobile use ramped up, the need for bridges increased at an almost dazzling rate. 

Next time, we will look at the period of bridge building in the city that created conditions for New York to become the city that it is today — diving into client relations . Client relations and budget challenges may not get the spotlight, but they’re essential to how technology connects technical, architectural, and financial aspects of projects.