Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary and Analysis

"The Builders" opens with an annotated roll call of those responsible for that engineering marvel, architectural masterpiece, perfect expression of 19th-century industrialism, turning point in urban American history, and simply a nice way to cross the East River, in the Brooklyn Bridge. All are departed, leaving precious little about their lives. One winter day in 1852, John Augustus Roebling is inconvenienced when ice halts the Brooklyn ferries, and, 30 years later, sells the idea of a bridge to civic leaders by leading them on a tour of his creations in Cincinnati and Niagara Falls. Roebling is a cold, vain, suspicious, tormented man, cruel toward his children, but hailed by the public as a benefactor. He names son Washington, whom he has groomed to succeed him, his assistant, and before his eyes, through rare inattention, suffers an accident that leads to his...