Year: 1873

If the great East. River bridge, de,
signed to connect New York city and
Brooklyn; is ever finished, it will be a
most imposing and costly structure. A
New York letter says the Brooklyn tow
er is now at the hight OF dh ordinary
four.story house above the roadway.
When the tower shall have been COM
pleted, as expected this year, the top
will be nearly twice the hight OF Trinity
Church steeple. :.


At a point about one hundred feet
above the top of the present work,
arches will be begun SO as to make two
covered openings above the roadways.
Seventy feet above the sprinRing OF the
arch the top of the tower will be reached
where at 268 feet above high-watermark,
or 1S feet above Trinity Church steeple,
the f0ut cables which support the whole
roadway and travel of the bridge will
pass over and bending toward the river
until midway the bridge, where they
will be within eight feet of theroadway,
and then rise I'd the top oil the oPpositc
tower whence they will descend In a
curve 10 Gu6 duCuOIuBSo'


It will thus be seen that the cables
will extend from anchorage to anchor
age, and that the bridge will not.only
be suspended from tower to tower but
on either side of the towers to the
anchorages. From the anchorages to
the entrances OF the roadway the bridge
will consist of arches made to accomnlo-
date the travel on the streets, directed
by viadtiCt, an1 the structure be built
of masonry. The bridge in it's divisions
will therefore consist of central span
1,6O0 feet long-aboutthe distance from
the new Post-office to Duane street
the side spans extending to the anchor-
ages, each $50 feet long-or 100 feet
longer than the whole of the Niagara
Suspension Bridge-and the stone via
ducts each 1908 feet in length, which
is about the distance from Broadway to
the river on either side of Fulton street.
the total length will thus be 8, 1862 feet,
or the distance from Canal street to the
Astor House, Of which 3,456 feet will be
suspended;


There will b, 143 courses Of stone IN
each tower, of which 81 are now COM
pleted on the Brooklyn side, and 80 are
finished on the New York side. The
bases of the towers are 168 feet by 1O2
feet, or. an eighth Of mile around
them, while the stone .cornice at the top
of the towers, when completed, will be
49l feet wide and 135 feet long-the
area of the ground floor of the Academy
of Music-so that the summit OF the
towers will afford q comfortable outlook
for about 1000 persons ut time. Near
the top of the cornices and upon the
masonry there will be placed an i'm
mense iron plate, on which there wll
rest "saddle," or another iron plate
with level bottom and rollers under.
meath. Over the top of the saddle"
which will be oval, the cables will run
with similar curves to the anchorages on
the one side and midway on the bridge
on the other. This arrangement is for
the purpose of preventing any side
strain from coming upon the towers, so
that any load which would tend by its
position on either side of the towers to
exert strain upon the masonry, WILDE
compensated for by the movement OF
the "saddle." The equality of weight
in the cables will be so regulated that
depending in similar curves from either
side of the tower not particle OF side
strain will ever be brought to bearupon
the towers which will have to sustain
only perpendicular dead weight. 1t will
therefore be seen it is essentially neces-
sary that the anchorage or place where
the ends of the cables are fastened
should be of such solidity as to defy any
strain that could possibly be broughtto
bear upon it. The building of such q
structure is therefore work OF great
magnitude.