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GENIUS, WILLPOWER AND THOUSANDS OF MILES OF STEEL WIRE WENT INTO THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE
IT WAS CALLED THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BRIDGE IN THE world. At the time of its 1931 opening, it certainly was the longest single span. To honor the engineering feat it represented, a stamp with its picture was issued, and the bridge became the subject of music, even a children's book.
Yet, a section of suspension cable for the George Washington Bridge in the collections of the National Museum of American History (p. 38) can only hint at such glories. Three feet in diameter and ten feet long, the massive cylinder weighs an ungainly 34,000 pounds. From its ends protrude 26,474 individual steel wires, compacted under 400 tons of pressure. Before computers, this experimental section helped engineers model the effects of compression on the finished bridge's cables. Today, it represents an engineering marvel, whose creation spanned half a century of depressions, politics and the passions of two of America's greatest bridge designers.
No matter when it was built, the first bridge to span the Hudson River from New Jersey to New York City was destined for fame. After the Civil War, a single span was determined most suitable for the wide, heavily trafficked river just west of the fast-growing metropolis. But materials and engineering skill lagged far behind the dream.
Until 1888. Just five years after the completion of John Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge, then the world's longest suspension bridge, 38-year-old Austrian-born engineer Gustav Lindenthal put forth a plan for a suspension bridge across the Hudson. It was a grand concoction: six railroad tracks, more than a mile in total length. Its center span was to be nearly twice as long as that of Roebling's widely admired masterpiece.
Great feats of engineering require greater feats of imagination. For both, Lindenthal was well qualified. With little formal education and a physique to match the size of his dreams, he had taught himself English and the rudiments of engineering. Immigrating to America in 1874, he quickly prospered in his adopted land, whose engineers had more use for quick thinking and practical energy than college degrees.
By the turn of the century, Lindenthal -was renowned among his peers. His Seventh Street and Smithfield Street...