foundation for the Staten Island tower had
required 47,000 cubic yards of concrete, and before it settled on firm sand 105 feet below the surface, 81,500 cubic yards
of muck and sand had to be lifted up through the dredging holes by clamshell buckets suspended from cranes. The caisson for
the Brooklyn tower had to be sunk to about 170 feet below sea level, had required 83,000 cubic yards of concrete, and 143,600
cubic yards of muck and sand had to be dredged up.
The foundations, the ones that anchor the bridge to Staten Island and Brooklyn, were concrete blocks the height of a ten-story
building, each triangular-shaped, and holding, within their hollows, all the ends of the cable strands that stretch across
the bridge. These two anchorages, built by The Arthur A. Johnson Corporation and Peter Kiewit Sons' Company, hold back the
240,000,000-pound pull of the bridge's four cables.
It had taken a little more than two years to complete the four foundations, and it had been a day-and-night grind, unappreciated
by sidewalk superintendents and, in fact, protested by two hundred Staten Islanders on March 29, 1961; they claimed, in a
petition presented to Richmond County District Attorney John M. Braisted, Jr., that the foundation construction between 6
P.M. and 6 A.M. was ruining the sleep of a thousand persons within a one-mile radius. In Brooklyn, the Bay Ridge neighborhood
also was cluttered with cranes and earth-moving equipment as work on the approachway to the bridge continued, and the people
still were hating Moses, and some had cried foul after he had awarded a $20,000,000 contract, without competitive bidding,
to a construction company that employs his son-in-law. All concerned in the transaction immediately denied there was anything
irregular about it.
But when Hard Nose Murphy arrived, things were getting better; the bridge was finally crawling up out of the water, and the
people had something to see—some visible justification for all the noise at night—and in the afternoons some old Brooklyn
men with nothing to do would line the shore watching the robin-red towers climb higher and higher.
The towers had been made in sections in steel plants and had been floated by barge to the bridge site. The Harris Structural
Steel Company had made the Brooklyn tower, while Bethlehem made the Staten Island tower—both to O. H. Ammann's specifications.
After the tower sections had arrived at the bridge site, they were lifted up by floating derricks anchored alongside the tower
piers. After the first three tiers of each tower leg had been locked into place, soaring at this point to about 120 feet,
the floating derricks were replaced by "creepers"-—derricks, each with a lifting capacity of more than one hundred tons, that
crept up the towers on tracks bolted to the sides of the tower legs. As the towers got higher, the creepers were raised until,
finally, the towers had reached their pinnacle of 693 feet.
While the construction of towers possesses the element of danger, it is not really much different from building a tall building
or an enormous lighthouse; after the third or fourth story is built, it is all the same the rest of the way up. The real art
and drama in bridge building begins after the towers are up; then the men have to reach out from these towers and begin to
stretch the cables and link the span over the sea.
This would be Murphy's problem, and as he sat in one of the Harris Company's boats on this morning in May 1962, idly watching
from the water as the Staten Island tower loomed up to its tenth tier, he was saying to one of the engineers in the boat,
"You know, every time I see a bridge in this stage, I can't help but think of all the problems we got coming next—all the
mistakes, all the cursing, all the goddamned sweat and the death we gotta go through to finish this thing . . ."
The engineer nodded, and then they both watched quietly again as the
required 47,000 cubic yards of concrete, and before it settled on firm sand 105 feet below the surface, 81,500 cubic yards
of muck and sand had to be lifted up through the dredging holes by clamshell buckets suspended from cranes. The caisson for
the Brooklyn tower had to be sunk to about 170 feet below sea level, had required 83,000 cubic yards of concrete, and 143,600
cubic yards of muck and sand had to be dredged up.
The foundations, the ones that anchor the bridge to Staten Island and Brooklyn, were concrete blocks the height of a ten-story
building, each triangular-shaped, and holding, within their hollows, all the ends of the cable strands that stretch across
the bridge. These two anchorages, built by The Arthur A. Johnson Corporation and Peter Kiewit Sons' Company, hold back the
240,000,000-pound pull of the bridge's four cables.
It had taken a little more than two years to complete the four foundations, and it had been a day-and-night grind, unappreciated
by sidewalk superintendents and, in fact, protested by two hundred Staten Islanders on March 29, 1961; they claimed, in a
petition presented to Richmond County District Attorney John M. Braisted, Jr., that the foundation construction between 6
P.M. and 6 A.M. was ruining the sleep of a thousand persons within a one-mile radius. In Brooklyn, the Bay Ridge neighborhood
also was cluttered with cranes and earth-moving equipment as work on the approachway to the bridge continued, and the people
still were hating Moses, and some had cried foul after he had awarded a $20,000,000 contract, without competitive bidding,
to a construction company that employs his son-in-law. All concerned in the transaction immediately denied there was anything
irregular about it.
But when Hard Nose Murphy arrived, things were getting better; the bridge was finally crawling up out of the water, and the
people had something to see—some visible justification for all the noise at night—and in the afternoons some old Brooklyn
men with nothing to do would line the shore watching the robin-red towers climb higher and higher.
The towers had been made in sections in steel plants and had been floated by barge to the bridge site. The Harris Structural
Steel Company had made the Brooklyn tower, while Bethlehem made the Staten Island tower—both to O. H. Ammann's specifications.
After the tower sections had arrived at the bridge site, they were lifted up by floating derricks anchored alongside the tower
piers. After the first three tiers of each tower leg had been locked into place, soaring at this point to about 120 feet,
the floating derricks were replaced by "creepers"-—derricks, each with a lifting capacity of more than one hundred tons, that
crept up the towers on tracks bolted to the sides of the tower legs. As the towers got higher, the creepers were raised until,
finally, the towers had reached their pinnacle of 693 feet.
While the construction of towers possesses the element of danger, it is not really much different from building a tall building
or an enormous lighthouse; after the third or fourth story is built, it is all the same the rest of the way up. The real art
and drama in bridge building begins after the towers are up; then the men have to reach out from these towers and begin to
stretch the cables and link the span over the sea.
This would be Murphy's problem, and as he sat in one of the Harris Company's boats on this morning in May 1962, idly watching
from the water as the Staten Island tower loomed up to its tenth tier, he was saying to one of the engineers in the boat,
"You know, every time I see a bridge in this stage, I can't help but think of all the problems we got coming next—all the
mistakes, all the cursing, all the goddamned sweat and the death we gotta go through to finish this thing . . ."
The engineer nodded, and then they both watched quietly again as the
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