The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez by Jimmy Breslin

Author:Jimmy Breslin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-fiction
ISBN: 1400046823
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE SONG OF Williamsburg was played by thousands and thousands of feet on the wood planks of the walkway on the Williamsburg Bridge, one of three gray iron bridges crossing the East River from lower Manhattan to the borough of Brooklyn. The bridges turned Brooklyn into the fourth largest city in the nation.

The Brooklyn Bridge steps out of the sidewalks and streets around City Hall in Manhattan, climbs gracefully over the East River, and descends to Borough Hall and the civic center of Brooklyn.

The bridge on the left, the Manhattan Bridge, starts only blocks away on the downtown East Side, in Chinatown, and spans the river and drops into a Brooklyn of factories that work weekends.

The Williamsburg Bridge is a few blocks farther uptown. It rises gray and is covered with stiffening trusses, steel latticework whose hundreds of strands give the bridge its industrial appearance and its strength. Out of the famous Jewish tenement streets on the Lower East Side, Eldridge and Orchard and Rivington and Ludlow, the dreary bridge breaks into the sky over the river and slopes down to crowded Williamsburg, a place where children used to go to work.

When it started, when there was no bridge, Williamsburg had about a hundred thousand people who lived and labored in the harshest turn-of-the-century conditions. Of course there were the rich Germans, Austrians, and Irish, who had a pillow wherever they sat. There were such grand people as Commodore Vanderbilt, who stole railways, Jim Fisk, and William C. Whitney.

They were in large houses on streets of expensive hotels and clubs. Along the riverfront they established Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Astral Oil (which soon became Standard Oil), and Flint Glass (which turned into Corning Glass). The rich loved to stroll past their big moneymaking plants and enjoy the sight of the river and Manhattan’s glorious Wall Street area. Even more, they loved Williamsburg because it encouraged the true American dream, cheap labor.

From the sitting rooms and porches and lawns of the great houses, it was fascinating to watch the bridge rise. Up from these tenements across the river it began its climb on November 7, 1898. Invisible at first, but soon in plain sight, were the first boatloads of workers out on the river, with pile drivers and high stacks of steel floating on barges.

The bridge took five years to build. With two anchors 2,200 feet apart, the length of the bridge and approaches was to become 7,308 feet. The towers grew to 310 feet above high water, the center of the bridge clearing high water by 135 feet. Suspension cables were 18¾ inches thick. The bridge was completed on December 19, 1903, with the cost reaching $30 million.

It was not a handsome bridge, but the idea of bringing together a city yearning to dominate the world was thrilling at first.

And then the song of Williamsburg burst forth.

Here they came across the bridge, thousands and thousands pounding the bridge walkway planks to create a concert, these black hats and beards and anxious dark

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