Building the Bridge

Building the Bridge. . , Turning Othmar Ammann's engineering vision into a functioning facility began with a groundbreaking ceremony in Fort Lee, New Jersey on September 21, 1927., Work moved forward year-found. Foundations were excavated and constructed, then towers and anchorages were built. The bridge's four main cables were spun, suspender cables were attached and finally, roadway beams were secured to the suspenders., In just over four years, man and machine poured hundreds of thousands of yards of concrete, strung 107,000 miles of galvanized steel wire for the cables , a length that could stretch nearly halfway to the moon , and fastened together tons of structural steel., Skyscraper pioneer Cass Gilbert drew plans for cladding the support towers in masonry, but this idea was dismissed at the onset of the Great Depression. Besides, the stark steel towers set the bridge apart in an unexpected beautiful way., The George Washington Bridge was completed eight months ahead of schedule and to the delight of many, substantially under its $60 million budge., [Captions:] , Ironworkers at the top of a tower swing a steel section into place. Mohawk Ironworkers from the Kahnawake reserve in Quebec were integral to building the city's skyline, including the bridge., The first cross-river survey for the George Washington Bridge, Chief Engineer Othmar Amman stands third from the left., A section of a tower base was fabricated in an off-site shop, transported by rail and then barge to the bridge site, along with other preassembled segments in 1928., River barges carried prefabricated sections of the tower to the site, where cranes lifted the sections into position., Tower construction in background, construction of the Manhattan anchorage in the foreground., Site conditions on opposite sides of the river required different designs for anchorages. In New Jersey, the bridge's cables are anchored to solid rock. Part of the ridge was chiseled out, and caverns (as seen here) were blasted into the cliff. The anchorage on the Manhattan side is a man-made structure with reinforced concrete.