Benjamin Franklin Bridge
Suspension bridge whose toll booths trace a nineteen twenties lawsuit two states nearly let sink the project.
This guide to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia goes underwater first, to the sand hogs working inside its piers in 1925 under compressed air so intense their shifts were cut to two hours. It then follows the money fight that nearly stopped the bridge outright: Pennsylvania wanted it free, New Jersey needed tolls to repay its loans, contracts froze, and Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick squared off against New Jersey's commissioners as the dispute headed toward the Supreme Court. Along the way the construction crew shrank from twelve hundred workers to six hundred fifty-one as unpaid contractors sent their crews home.
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