Brooklyn Bridge

This guide to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York centers on chief engineer Washington Roebling, left largely bedridden by caisson disease since 1872 and forced to watch construction from a Brooklyn Heights window through a telescope. It follows his wife Emily, who taught herself cable tension, catenary curves and steel tolerances so she could take his place, shuttling between their bedroom and the site to relay his instructions and manage the engineers and politicians below. Listen while looking up at the cables overhead, the ones Emily came to understand better than most of the men who built them.