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Fig 1: Allen Searls’ photo of cable spinners with a Roebling Traveling Wheel on the George Washington Bridge, c1930. Jan Searls and & Doc Searls.


18 MAY-JUNE 2012 WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE


ROEBLING SUSPENDER ROPES STILL WORKING


ON THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE PART 1 BY: CLIFFORD W. ZINK


W


hile San Francisco celebrates the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary this month, the Port Authority of New York


and New Jersey is planning major work on the suspender ropes and cables – “the vitals of a suspension bridge,” as Fortune Magazine noted in 1931 – on that other bridge engineering marvel of the 1930s, the George Washington Bridge.


Besides being two of the greatest public works of the Great


Depression, these landmark bridges share another defining characteristic: the John A. Roebling’s Sons Company of Trenton, N.J. was the cable contractor on both bridges (Fig. 1). Tis first of two articles focuses on the history of the Roebling cables and suspender ropes on the George Washington Bridge (Fig. 2), and the second will focus on the Port Authority’s “once in a lifetime project.” “Tere were suspension bridges before those the Roeblings built, it is true,” Fortune noted in 1931. “Not until steel-wire cables were devised, however, was the modern suspension bridge a possibility. Nor did it become a reality until the Roeblings had built the Brooklyn Bridge (Fig. 3).”


AND COUNTING: YEARS


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