Not only an amazing piece of engineering but the hardship and danger that many of the workers subjected themselves to is hard to fathom in this more modern age.
“I liked his book on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge so much that after I was done reading it, I immediately went down there and walked across it a couple of times (I work up on 46th and Lex).”
I crossed it when I visited New York. Scared the hell out of me. I don’t like heights. In my mind I knew I was perfectly safe since I’d read McCullough’s book and knew the bridge was six times stronger than necessary. But I crossed it and came back because I wanted to see the whole thing. Like you said, an amazing feat. Similar to the pyramids, some day far from now, people will wonder how it was built, when the memory of caisson technology will have faded away.