The Epic of New York City (62 page)

Having postponed the premiere many times and fearful that it might be a fiasco, Edison shunned any fanfare that great day. He stayed up all the previous night to rehearse his men in their new jobs after the first switch had been thrown. Despite his precautions, reporters for the metropolitan papers and for some scientific Journal's were on hand. Monday, September 4, 1882, they gathered in the dynamo room at 257 Pearl Street, along with some directors of the Edison company.

All eyes were on Thomas Alva Edison. The thirty-five-year-old inventor was of less than average height and was already beginning to flesh out. A handsome man, he had gray eyes, a sturdy chin, a large and sensitive mouth, a prominent nose, and large ears. Locks of hair hung in careless disarray over his domed forehead. When he concentrated on a theoretical problem, his eyes were those of a dreamer;
in an emergency they were the eyes of a man of action; in moments of relaxation they were as boyishly mischievous as those of Tom Sawyer. Tom Edison spat on the floor. He swore manfully. He said “git” for “get.” He pronounced “does” as “doos.” But on this day of days in his life he did not wear his usual baggy pants and rumpled jacket. Instead, he had struggled into a Prince Albert coat, a white cravat, a starched shirtfront, and a white derby hat.

At 3
P.M
., with summer sunlight smiling on downtown Manhattan, Edison signaled his chief electrician, John W. Lieb, to pull the master switch and thus light offices and homes with his electricity. The effect was anticlimactic, like striking matches in the glare of a bonfire. Not until the descent of velvet dusk could the radiance of this man-made illumination be appreciated.

The New York Times Building, at 41 Park Row, had been wired. The next day a
Times
article said:

Only one dynamo went into operation that first day, but Edison declared that it would run forever, provided there was no earthquake. It did function eight years with only one minor stoppage. But other small troubles occurred that first day—such as the blowing out of underground safety catch boxes—and Edison raced from the plant first to one spot and then to another to make repairs. Soon his collar had been torn off, and his white derby hat was stained with grease.

A few days later a policeman rushed into the central station to report trouble at Ann and Nassau streets. Edison and a helper trotted to this corner and found a junction box leaking onto the moist street. Later Edison said:

Aware of J. Pierpont Morgan's influence, Edison personally oversaw the installation of lights in the white marble Drexel Building, at Wall and Broad streets, where Morgan had his private office. On that notable day of September 4, 1882, Edison scurried down to the building to turn on the lights himself.

The first few months after the Edison system went into operation, no customer received a bill. Fourteen months later there were 508 subscribers and 12,732 bulbs, but each bulb cost $1. Trouble of one kind or another was forever developing. If it wasn't a leak from an underground junction box, it was a fire in a house or shop wired for electricity. New Yorkers were pleased with Edison's invention and agreed that it was superior to either gas or arc lights, but in the following decade they were slow to adopt it.

Chapter 28

T
HE
B
ROOKLYN
B
RIDGE
was opened on May 24, 1883. During the previous two and a half centuries of New York's history no bridge had spanned the East River to connect Manhattan Island with Long Island.

John Augustus Roebling, the man destined to succeed in this undertaking, was born in the German state of Thuringia in 1806. Brilliant, imaginative, and ambitious, Roebling studied at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Berlin, then the world's best engineering school. Roebling was twenty-five years old when he came here in 1831. He was a many-sided genius, like Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Goethe. He was a master of mathematics, a scholar who
put together a magnificent private library, a philosophy student who wrote a 2,000-page book on the universe, a musician who played the piano and flute, a linguist who spoke German and English and French, an engineer, a technologist, and an inventor. Despite all his many abilities, Roebling had just one ambition—to become a builder of great bridges. He was a man in a hurry. Forever fighting the clock, Roebling refused to see anyone five minutes late for an appointment. Still, his compassionate nature attracted both men and women.

Peter Cooper came to know this young man, instantly recognized his genius, and encouraged him. Cooper had a son-in-law, named Abram S. Hewitt, who was later elected mayor of New York. On June 19, 1857, Roebling wrote Hewitt a letter in which he proposed to build a bridge across the East River. During the 1840's the idea of such a bridge had been raised, because in winter months the ferry trip between New York and Brooklyn was slow and uncomfortable and dangerous. Most New Yorkers regarded the project with indifference because they lived where others wished to come, but many Brooklynites who worked in Manhattan had to use the ferry twice daily. Roebling was the first
engineer
to suggest that a bridge was feasible. Hewitt had his letter published in the New York
Journal of Commerce.

By this time Roebling had fabricated the first wire rope in America, established a wire factory in Trenton, New Jersey, built several suspension bridges, and won a good reputation. However, publication of his letter aroused little interest because of New Yorkers' smugness and because of the outbreak of the Civil War. After the war Roebling submitted to a group of Brooklyn civic leaders a set of plans calling for construction of a bridge twice as long as any in existence and capable of bearing a load of 18,700 tons. He estimated that it would cost $4,000,000.

Except for a few enlightened New Yorkers, such as Hewitt, enthusiasm for the Brooklyn Bridge came not from the people of Manhattan, not from public officials, but from a small group of Brooklyn's private citizens. One prominent New Yorker said, “Our city is not a jealous city, but then to ask it to build a bridge in order to send its trade to a neighboring city is asking a good deal even from the best of natures.” Another New Yorker warned that a bridge would “drain the resources of the city of New York in order to fertilize the sandy wastes of Long Island.” The Union Ferry Company,
which was transporting thousands of commuters a year between Brooklyn and New York, certainly did not favor the bridge.

The winter of 1866 proved decisive. So bitterly cold was the weather and so choked with ice was the East River that ferry traffic became annoyingly slow. Brooklyn's daily commuters figured that it took them longer to get to Manhattan than it took railway passengers to make the 150-mile trip from Albany to Manhattan.

On the frigid evening of December 21 a Brooklyn businessman, named Alexander McCue, was surprised to see William C. Kingsley drive up to his home in a carriage. Kingsley was a prominent contractor and a Brooklyn civic leader. He already had convinced McCue that a bridge could and should be built. Now Kingsley asked his friend, “Will you drive with me to Mr. Murphy's this evening? I want to get him to consent to prepare a bill for the bridge.”

Henry C. Murphy had been editor of the Brooklyn
Eagle,
had risen to power as the Democratic leader of Brooklyn, had served a term as mayor, and was now a state senator. That winter evening he was resting on his estate in what today is Owls Head Park in western Brooklyn near Colonial Road and Wakeman Place. After hearing Kingsley's invitation, McCue had looked out a window of his home and shivered. However, McCue was impressed with Kingsley's electric personality and hoped that he would win over Murphy. Climbing into Kingsley's carriage and pulling buffalo robes over their laps, the two men braved the night to drive to the Murphy estate.

The senator was astounded to see them emerge from the winter wasteland but hurried them inside so that they could get warm in front of a roaring fire. After they exchanged pleasantries, Kingsley explained their mission. He declared that a bridge was badly needed. Senator Murphy raised objections. Kingsley met all of them. Kingsley went on talking, knitting a logical argument that fascinated Murphy. At last, raising a hand in a gesture of surrender, the senator said that he agreed. It was late in the morning when Kingsley and McCue left Murphy's home, but they had his promise to draft an enabling bill.

Senator Murphy's measure was passed by the state legislature on April 16, 1867. It granted a charter to a company of private citizens to build a toll bridge across the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Kingsley was so optimistic that even before die bill passed, he signed contracts worth thousands of dollars for construction materials. Thirty-nine investors—most of them from Brooklyn, a few of them from New York—met on May 13, 1867, to organize the
New York Bridge Company. Three days later Murphy was elected its president, and three committees were appointed. John A. Roebling was made chief engineer at $8,000 a year. He predicted that this “will not only be the greatest bridge in existence, but it will be the greatest engineering work of this continent and of the age.”

Although the company was privately owned, the state permitted New York and Brooklyn to buy part of its stock. At a meeting of New York's city council it was proposed that the city buy $1,500,000 worth of bridge securities. The aldermen, with their usual avarice, forbade the city comptroller to make this purchase unless and until some money changed hands. Bridge company officials, bending to political reality, gave Boss Tweed $65,000 to pass along to the boys in City Hall. For this service Tweed got 560 shares of stock, with a par value of $40,000, for himself.

By the end of 1868 Brooklyn had subscribed $3,000,000 worth of securities and New York half as much, the total capital issue being $5,000,000. The biggest single subscriber was William C. Kingsley. Despite the fact that money now was available, many people doubted the wisdom of the whole project. They were staggered by the length of the span Roebling proposed. Owners of the East River ferries fought the bridge. Editor Horace Greeley and Brooklyn Mayor Martin Kalbfleisch expressed their nervousness. That Roebling! Now he wanted to use steel wire in the bridge instead of iron wire. Why, this never had been done in the history of the world! To allay fears, Roebling invited a board of prominent engineers to review his construction plans, and in May, 1869, they unanimously agreed that for strength and durability Roebling's bridge was more than adequate.

Congress passed a bill authorizing construction of the bridge, and President Grant signed it. The Secretary of War ordered three military engineers to ascertain if shipping along the East River would be impeded by the proposed bridge. They recommended raising the span from 130 to 135 feet above the river at mean high water, and Roebling agreed. The height became standard for future bridges over navigable waters in America. When the War Department approved the project on June 21, 1869, the last legal hurdle had been cleared.