It was an audacious project from the start. 14 years in the building, the Brooklyn Bridge easily catapulted itself into the ranks of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial Age. The span, more than a mile long, was also a reminder of New York City's emergence as America's richest and most populous city, for it was the first of several iconic pieces of what they used to call urban furniture that would forever define New York to the world, like the Statue of Liberty and her beckoning torch across the bay just three years after the bridge was completed.
And within the next score of years, a forest of high-rises would be sprouting like sequoias all over Lower Manhattan. Though these later buildings are much taller, they are surpassed by the bridge's majestic and cathedral-like proportions. It could be argued that the Brooklyn Bridge was the city's first skyscraper in disguise.
The bridge also became a vast open-air stage for some of the rollicking excesses of the 19th century showmanship. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opened as the world's longest suspension bridge, hailed as an engineering marvel. Circus impresario P.T. Barnum had earlier suggested marching his elephants, led by his star Jumbo, across the bridge to prove it could handle heavy loads. He offered $5,000 to do that, but he was turned down.
With public trust still wavering, the bridge management company sought a spectacle to reassure the city. Not a week after its completion, a panicky crowd convinced it would collapse, stampeded, and left 12 dead. So, on May 17th, 1884, Barnum organized a grand procession from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The event featured 21 elephants, including Jumbo, seven camels, and 10 dromedaries. The animals, many weighing over 10,000 pounds, crossed without incident, and the New York Times described the scene as if Noah's Ark were emptying itself onto Long Island.
While Jumbo's keeper later said the crossing was intended to test the bridge's strength, there's no independent record confirming Barnum's primary goal was to prove safety. Barnum had also a commercial motive, using the event as prime circus advertising. Still, the procession succeeded in boosting public confidence, calming fears, and becoming one of the bridge's most iconic moments.
In short, Barnum's elephants did not save the bridge from collapse. The bridge was structurally sound, but they did help restore public trust and celebrate the bridge's opening in a memorable way.
The Brooklyn Bridge also helped jumpstart the consolidation of New York City as the nation's metropole. It acted as an accelerant to the movement, mostly achieved in 1898 to unite Brooklyn, New York, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx into Greater New York, the city of five boroughs as we know it today.
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