EAST RIVER BRIDGE.
Our Land and Country—1892

No more amazing structural object greets the eye in America's greatest city than the East River Bridge, which connects that city with Brooklyn. Nothing that can here be said can add to the force of the graphic descriptions already given by thousands of pens, extolling this wonderful product of science and mechanism. A few direct figures will here suffice: Total length of the bridge, 5,989 feet; width, 85 feet; number of cables, 4; diameter of each cable, 15¾ inches; length of wire in four cables, 14,361 miles; ultimate strength of each cable, 12,200 tons; cable-making commenced June 11, 1877; the bridge was opened May 24, 1883, and cost about $15,000,000.

It is thus the largest bridge of its kind in this or any other country, and, in addition to its vast practical use as a thoroughfare between those two great cities, it affords unrivalled harbor-views of great expanse and distance. That its financial success has been such as to fully realize the expectations of its projectors, is seen in the fact that a recent annual report shows the number of foot and car passengers during that year to have been, in round numbers, 41,000,000; the receipts from all sources, $1,240,000; and the expenditures, $1,075,000. It is an interesting fact that nowhere in the history of engineering work have caissons of such prodigious size been conceived, that for the building of the pier on the New York side weighing some seven thousand tons, with a concrete filling of eight thousand tons. And, while Brooklyn has erected the Stranahan statue in honor of the promoter of her magnificent park, and New York to Morse and other benefactors, the name of Roebling, has yet to be enshrined in monumental bronze or marble by these cities.