"It so happens that the work which is likely to be our most durable monument, and to convey some knowledge of us to the most remote posterity, is a work of bare utility; not a shrine, not a fortress, but a bridge." So wrote one architectural critic of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the grandest and most eloquent monuments to the American spirit that our country has produced. Its magnificent site, breathtaking span, cutting-edge technology, and sheer beauty have made it the subject of poems, paintings, photographs, novels, plays, and movies. Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge's triumphant arches lie astonishing tales of death, deception, genius, and daring. Over the fourteen-year course of its construction, there were many deaths, including that of John A.
