Excerpt: The Brooklyn Bridge has always been an icon. When its massive stone towers began rising in the early 1870s, photographers and illustrators began documenting what was considered the most daring and astounding engineering feat of the era.

Throughout the years of construction, skeptical newspaper editorials openly questioned whether the project was a colossal folly. Yet the public was always fascinated by the scale of the project, courage, and dedication of the men building it, and the magnificent sight of stone and steel rising high above the East River.

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