Before the link between Manhattan and Brooklyn was made, the only way to travel between the two cities was by ferry. Approx. 1/10 of Brooklyn's inhabitants boarded a Union Ferry Company ferry and crossed the East River daily. David McCullough wrote, "Thirteen boats were kept steaming back and forth, day and night, making something over a thousand crossings in twenty-four hours." (1)
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The ferries were an inconvenience to everyone who came into contact with them. They were unreliable, slow and were sometimes packed with more than 400 people. S.W. Green stated, "It goes without saying, that the transportation of the vast mass of humanity and freight over various ferry rides across the East River, like true love, does not always run smooth." (2) Winters were especially bad; the weather caused the ferries to delay trips sometimes for days on end. The wind, strong currents, fog and ice would keep people from getting to work, or coming home. Although the ferry ride was usually dependable, the drawbacks were frustrating. "These delays and exposures, so vexatious and dangerous to man and beast, deter many a family which would otherwise gladly live in Brooklyn…. Pleasant as the passage of the river generally is, there are most undeniable drawbacks from which the ferry-boat transit cannot be liberated." (3) |
It was on a cold, wintry day in 1852, when John Augustus Roebling took the ferry from Brooklyn over to New York when he decided he was going to construct a bridge to connect the cities. Roebling thought a bridge would signify Americanism to all who would cross it. As Alan Trachenberg acknowledged, "It would give their passage a form, and link them in consciousness to their national destinies as Americans."(4) The bridge would unify all of America; finally making it possible to travel from California to the tip of Brooklyn without ever touching water. To John Roebling, the question wasn't whether or not he would create a bridge over the East River, it was how he was going to do it and who was going to help make it possible.
1. David McCullough, The Great Bridge, page 105
2. S.W. Green, The Complete History… page 62
4. Alan Trachtenberg, Fact and Symbol, page 77
