Building the Brooklyn Bridge: A look back at 19th Century
American Ingenuity New York City's Brooklyn Bridge stands as a
testament to hard work and world class engineering. An iconic
landmark and historical site, it is one of the oldest suspension
bridges in the United States. At the time it opened in 1883, it
was the longest suspension bridge in the world—50% longer than
any previously built. Building the bridge required the use of
specially designed workspaces that could be submerged below New
York's East River. Workers would need to excavate tons of mud
and sediment in order to reach solid bedrock capable of
supporting the bridge's two support towers. As a New York City
historical website explains, 3,000-ton pneumatic caissons were
used for this submarine and subterranean excavation. The
caissons were "large, airtight cylinders in which workers
cleared away layers of silt in an atmosphere of compressed air
underneath the riverbed." The caissons were deployed 78 feet
below the river on the Manhattan side, a