And august, the next is pay pourhouse arena power house arena. A little bit about this book and erica wagner. As you can tell just from the backdrop here, this is a great topic for this setting in Brooklyn Bridge park. Not most great monuments dont dont inspire great rating but this is a good exception to that. From hard crane to many otherpots and writers and notably to the nonfiction writer, david mccullough, there have been really inspired writing on this subject, and erica wagner is right up there with all of those other writers. What she has done here with this biography of Washington Roebling is remind everyone although he whats son of a designer he was the person long with his wife who got it through, those dozen or so youres to the end and it was so years to the end and 15 years ago his father died, just up here in the heights behind you, and the young 32yearold took over and brilliantly brought it to life. A little bit about erica. She has written on many different topics. We were just talking about her notable book, aerials gift, about ted hughes and sylvia platt. She has had a career over the last three decades in the uk, even though she is a new yorker by birth. And has been a critic and a literaried for, currently literary editor at Harpers Bazaar in the uk and literaried for for a long time the london times and a contributing writer at the new statesman. Were very pleased she has come over from england to speak to us today and i hope youll give a nice round of place to eric would wagner. [applause] im a little small so i might is that okay . Can you hear me . Very good. Im going to put this down. Well, thank you so much, peter, and i am really thrilled to be here. Its really hard to imagine a better backdrop for my talk this evening. I am never not moved when i look at this view, which perhaps you wont be surprised to hear, coming from me, but ill explain to you a little bit why that is. Im going to tell you how i became involved in washingtons story, and im going to tell you a little bit about the building of the bridge and then ill keep an eye on the time and then i might read to you a little bit from the book itself. I carry a picture of Washington Roebling in my wallet. The man who built the Brooklyn Bridge, as it says on the cover of my book, but not just any picture. The one ive kept with me since i was 19 years old, in case youre wondering, im 49 now. Its a photograph taken in 1861, when washington, at the age of 24, had just joined in the union army. So when i was still a teenager i photocopied it from a book in the New York Public Library issue covered it with a sticky tape to protect and it made a little envelope to keep it even safer. I wrote war on that little envelope. Washingtons initials. His middle name was augustus, and my full name is erica augusta wagner so make what you will of that. A strange story perhaps so i will elaborate somewhat. I grew up across the river on the upper wi side. Have to admit i never set foot on the Brooklyn Bridge until i was a teenager. I got myself a boyfriend, young english civil engineer. He came to visit me in new york one winter, but in truth, i think it wasnt really me he wanted to visit. It was the Brooklyn Bridge. And so we walked on the promenade together, and like so many before and so many since, i was struck with wonder by the bridge, and it was no bad thing that i had someone with me who could explain to me how it really worked. The boyfriend did what boyfriends do, he disappeared. But there you good. However, my fascination with the bridge remained. How did it get there . Who made it . I began to read all i could about it, and that is how i met washington. I read hamilton skylars early biography of the roeblings, David Mcculloughs the great bridge, read letters, technical reports, newspaper articles and then the gripping and shocking biography washington wrote of his father. Heard washingtons voice as clear as a bell inside my head, erasing the near century that separated us. I am and always have been a writer. Have never been an engineer. Washington spoke to me as one writer to another. It seemed to me that he wanted me to speak for him. On the cover of chief engineer, there is a different photograph of washington. One taken in 1864, not long before the left the army after four years hard fighting in the american civil war. One of the most dreadful conflicts the world has ever seen. But that war was only one of the many challenges this extraordinary man would face, a man who was born in 1867, on in 1837, on the frontier, and who died in 1926, in the jazz age. His life was a life that spanned an american century. He was a man who made an american icon, a bridge that has not only security new new yorks compute commuters and tourists and lovers for a sister half natch but has inspired photographers to artists. Who was this man . Why do i care about him so much . I want to show you. I want you to care, too. So i need you to know what an unprecedented feat of engineering the Brooklyn Bridge was, the first suspension bridge with cables made of steel, a bridge with a span that would not be significantly surpassed for 50 years, until the build offering the George Washington bridge and a bridge build using a dangerous new technology, one that washington pioneered at great cost to himself. He had taken over the project after the death of his father, John Roebling, famous engineer who had bridged niagra falls and the ohio river in cincinnati. At that time many people thought that to bridge the east river was impossible. But if anyone should be the man to accomplish the feat, well, John Roebling was that man. And then one day, in the summer of 1869, before any real work had been started, before very many plans had been made, John Roebling had what seemed to be a minor accident just over there, down by the river. Before two weeks had passed, he was dead. A horrible death from tetanus, and it was left to his son to take over the work. Washington had built bridges for the army during the war. He had then supervised the work on his fathers ohio bridge. Yet for all of his expertise, he had been his fathers lieutenant, but now John Roebling was no more. The bridges great power, their gothic silhouette, recognizable all over the world, are set on foundations deep beneath the east river. Those foundations were sunk using kasons, air chambers on the rivers bed. Inside the chambers hundreds of men doubt sand and stone while blocks of granite and limestone built the great tower above. A casso noh is launched from a ship to a dock are its towed to its correct position in the river and then sunk to settle on the mud beneath the surface of the water. There were shafts to set in men and bring waste material up as the men head down to bedrock for belong. The cason is made of wood. Its roof layer upon layer of dense pitch pine. There are shifts, too, to pump come pressed air into the champion compressed air into the chamber. The compressed air keeps the river out. What is it like to work in compressed air . Its like deep sea diving. Come up too fast from the dense atmosphere, and you get very sick indeed. And in the 21st century, this is called decompression sickness but in the 19th century, when thanks to projects such as the build offering the Brooklyn Bridge, its symptoms ban to appear, it was cass cason disease. Getting the bend some people said. Nitrogen bubbles in the blood causing a nicing pain, paralysis, and sometimes death. But that was only one of the dangers faced in this great work. The roof of this cason was made of wood, and one day, in 1870, deep underwater, the wooden roof of the kason caught fire. In the roebling archives at at that washingtons alma mater is a remarkable document, note written first in pencil, then crossed out and rewritten in average in hand that is still almost completely legible, despite the passage of time, despite the haste in it was composed, accidents was the heading and begins with one word, fire. Throughout his police officer, Washington Roebling would write on any available scrap of paper, on the back of old stationery, on old bills and random slips. Here is one, evidence both of attention and exhaustion, the need to keep every detail in his mind. It read nows almost like a kind of urgent poetry. Several small fires, leaks in seams, a caulking of oak catches easily, some easily put out. Had to flood cason, danger of doing it. Increased caution. Water pipes, hose, steam hose from outside, fire on night of december 1st. Candles pointing with cement. Bad place would not be seen. Burnt appearance. Living coals. No smoke. Risks. Ultimate decision. One million 350,000 gallons of water, fire not out until roof reached. On the timber roof of the cason, the car would rest. If the towers were to fail, everything could have been lost thanks to a moments carelessness. Washington carefully considered what had caused the blaze. The immediate cause of the fire must be oing to a candle held in the right hand of the man who had his coat or dinner a candle box which was nailed up over the door close to the roof, he surmised. He could only reach the box by stepping up on a frame brace when he would hold a candle with his right hand and reach into the box with his left. He must have held the candle there at least a minute, washington wrote. The man, the Brooklyn Eagle reported, was called mcdonald. Once he had seen the whole burn through the wood, he filled it with placer to conceal blaster to conceal his blunder help soon disappeared the paper wrote and has not been seen since. But in the oxygenrich atmosphere of the cason, the wood behind the patch job kept burning. Living coals as washington described them. Buckets of water, Carbon Dioxide from fire extinguishers had no effect. A desperate happeneds to to be tried. Nothing but to flood the kason from above but such a plan what more than just risky. If the air should all be out before the water had reached the roof, the result would be a sudden drop of the kason and the destruction of all support by the weigh of 28,000 tons, besides running the risk of causing the cason to leak so badly as to render reinflation impossible. Washington had never been a man to stay at his desk. The chief engineer was 33 years old now. He was down at the work site, down in the cason, as much or more as anyone who worked for him. Now the hard work and more crucially the weight of responsibility began to take its toll on washington. Feeling in the small of his back and lower limbs which precedes paralysis. Fire boats were called. 1,350,000 gallons of water were poured down, and the caisson remained flooded for two and a half days. It settled by only 2 inches. When the water was eventually pumped out, the damage had to be painstakingly repaired. 11 courses of timber had been damaged and more pine was forced into the breeches and irons drafts were bolted to the chambers roof. After those seven hours down in the caisson, washington had to be taken home an and rubbed forn hour on his spine with salt and whiskey. He tried to rest at any moment expected to hear the doorbell ring with the message the caisson was burning yet. He recovered to write his notes whether it was the salt and whiskey that did the trick or simply being away from the caisson, we dont know. We dont know if his wife, emily, tended to him or how much he would have seen of his 3yearold son. What we can know is nothing stopped him from his task. Every day brought new challenges and new uncertainties. Washington roebling might call all of this simply doing his job. But considering the strength of mind and feeling acquired to do that job is what draws us back to the room in a house in brooklyn heights, a room scented with smoke and whiskey to find washington back at his desk. There was still no end of solutions to be found. Construction took 14 years. During those years, washingtons health continued to worsen. The manner in which Emily Roebling came to his illness is an astonishing story in itself. When the bridge opened in may of 1883, there was a celebration such as the cities of new york and brooklyn had never seen and perhaps have never seen from that day to this but this remarkable story is only part of Washington Roeblings remarkable life. To trace the life i spent hours in the archives of Rutgers University and through the College Notes believe me you can be glad you didnt go to rbi in the 1850s. I read his love letters and his beloved old dog duty sunday. I traveled to the town of saxon buried in western pennsylvania where washington gridlock and which remains astonishingly pretty much as it was when John Roebling bolted in the 1830s. I walked across the ohio river and on the battlefield at gettysburg. I went to the Cold Springs Cemetery where washington and emily are buried. On her gravestone he had three words inscribed. Gifted, noble, true. It has been a wonderful journey. I have built my own bridge i hope from the past to the present day. Washington has been my companion for three decades because i am inspired by his tenacity, by the strength of his spirit. If a problem was put in front of him he wouldnt rest until it was solved. His life in many ways is a privileged one but its also one marked by brutality and discarded by the war of more than one kind. Nevertheless, he persisted always. When i felt so discouraged, hes given me courage. When i want to give up, he helps me to go on. I know that nothing can be done perfectly at the first trial, he once wrote. I also know that each day rings little logos of experience, which with honest intentions would lead to perfection after a while. So, that is just a little bit about how this remarkable structure came to be built all those years ago that has endured with some but not much alteration from that to this. I thought i could read a little bit from the book as i mentioned in my talk. Emily roebling, washingtons wife, was a truly remarkable woman. When he became very ill in the 1870s, the episode id read was the beginning of his sickness. He got much sicker than that in 1873 in 1875, he thought he would die. He remained in control of the bridge, but emily was his extraordinary and ellisons coming to the bridge sites to consult with the other engineers talking to the trustees and doing all the kind of complicated politics of washington actually really didnt like anyway and probably wouldnt be very good at and was an astonishing woman in her own right. He met her during the civil war which is also a fascinating period in washingtons life so i thought i would tell you a little bit about their meeting. They met not long after the battle of gettysburg anbattle ot was in july 1863. In late november and early december 1863 in Orange County virginia, general meade made an attempt to strike at the Confederate Army but the fortifications prepared at the Little Valley proved a match for the union army as washington himself along with genita generl warning, we called up to the works found them high and strong built the year before no of salt could have succeeded. 10,000 would have been slaughtered. It was lost a day before when the works were unoccupied and we could have walked in but waited for nothing. Despite the mud and the slaughter, diversion was to be found. February 2, 1864, Washington Roebling found himself invited to a ball. You know the Third Quarter had a ball into the second was determined to put it back in the shade and high yearly he wrote to his sister elvira, his closest confidant in such matters. The evening was as far as washington was concerned, a spectacular success. Our supper cost 1,500 was furnished by parties in washington. The most prominent ladies were present, daughter of the Vice President , kate chase, the striking politically powerful daughter of lincolns treasury secretary is perhaps interesting to think about powerful government doctors right now, im just dropping dead in their. The daughters of the senator from New Hampshire but these women were not the reason for the letter to his sister. Last but not least was emily warren, sister of the general who came from west point to attend the ball. It was the first time i ever saw her and i am of the opinion that she has captured your brother at last. It was an attack in force that came without any warning or previous realization on such immigrants taking place, and it was therefore all the more successful and gives me the greatest pleasure to say that i have succumbed. But they said to each other that night, the way they dance, what she was wearing, the gleam of the candlelight of the buttons of his officers to to tunic but this is true and clear. He wasnt ready for the news to get out. Dont go like a great big goose and show this letter to everyone, he admonished his younger sister. You are my favorite sister, just as if she is the generals favorite sister and therefore cant appreciate my feelings. I appreciate your feelings and reading this letter and a weight your answer. He added a postscript just the kind of detail a young man notes about his beloved. She gets a sore throat once in a while and is additionally charming therefore. He signed himself off as ever, your affectionate brother, wash. Thank you very much. [applause] i think we are going to take some questions about what we are going to do is ask people to come up to the microphone. So you have to be quite brave to come up to the microphone. Any questions . Be brave. I told you everything you want to know . I must be wonderful. What year was it completed . 1883, 743 years ago. [inaudible] thats right. That was pretty spectacular. The gentle man up there. Can you come down . I was touched by a passage at the end of his life where there was a fear. Did you come across the original documentation for that story . The gentle man said he was very moved. He writes at the end of Washington Roeblings life and died at 89yearsold and in one of his last letters wrote that it moved him very much and they wanted to know i