Brooklyn Bridge Access

Even after completion, the public was terrified the "Eighth Wonder of the World" would collapse. To prove its strength in 1884, showman led a parade of 21 elephants across the span, cementing the Brooklyn Bridge as a permanent, safe icon of the New York skyline.

: Two dozen workers died from gas embolisms, and many others suffered permanent damage while reaching depths of nearly 80 feet below the river. The Silent Engineer brooklyn bridge

Washington took up the mantle, but the bridge’s foundation required workers to dig deep into the riverbed within —massive, airtight chambers. Inside, men worked in "the bowels of the earth," facing heat, darkness, and a then-mysterious affliction called "the bends" (decompression sickness). Even after completion, the public was terrified the

: Washington himself made frequent trips into the caissons. By 1872, severe attacks of the bends left him partially paralyzed, deaf, and unable to speak, forced to watch the construction through a telescope from his window. The Silent Engineer Washington took up the mantle,