A bridge to the future…
I have just finished reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough.
It’s the story of the design and construction of The Brooklyn Bridge.
The Bridge, designed buy John Roebling and built by his son Washingon Robling, was built between 1869 and 1883, and during that time, the United States underwent a massive technological and subsequent social revolution.
Nothing like the bridge had ever been attempted before. Whole new technologies had to be invented. Â The design was a radical departure for any previous bridge ever built and was largely untested.
The foundations for the supporting towers had to be constructed at the bottom of the East River, inside pressurized caissons measuring 178 feet x 102 feet. No one had ever done anything like that either.
Yet, of course, the bridge was both a success and went on to become an icon of New York City.
The bridge, which was started just after the Civil War (but conceived of even before that – at a time when it was still possible to buy and sell human beings in the US), was completed in time to be electrically lit. It was the first major construction made of steel as opposed to iron.Â
In short, it spanned not just the East River, but also a major transformation in what kind of culture we were and how technology impinged on our lives.
When it was done, the support tower, each made of stone, stood 276 feet above the river, making them, with the exception of Trinity Church, the tallest structures in New York.
On the night the bridge was opened, it was illuminated by electric lights – something no one had ever seen before, at least on that kind of scale.
The writer, Henry James looked at the giant bridge and the electric towers and saw the future of New York – a “steel-souled machine.. a monstrous organism” Well, he might have been right. Â It marked a clear turning point, and anyone who could look objectively at where technology of construction, electricity, pressurization and steel could see what was ahead.
I think of this as I read that, according to The Financial Times, (August 5, 2009) more than 120 million people are on Facebook every day, with an average amount of time spent equalling 5 billion minutes a day, or rather more than 9600 ‘man years’ (or person years) per day being poured into Facebook.
This tells us something about what kind of culture we are destined to become, just as the Brooklyn Bridge foretold where the 20th Century was going to take us.
On the day the Bridge was opened, the City of NY commissioned a massive mural showing what the East River skyline had looked like in 1783 (not much ), 1883 (with the new Bridge) and 1983, projecting forward. Â They were pretty close.
If the Bridge could foreshadow a Manhattan of massive steel skyscrapers and electrification that would eventually dwarf even the Brooklyn Bridge itself, then what does the massive amount of time spent on Facebook tell us?
And what if we marry that to the rather staggering statistic that people now upload 35 hours of video to Youtube every minute! A good production company could take a year to produce 35 hours of content.
The average American now spends 8.5 hours a day staring at some kind of screen – TV, computer or iPhone.
What does this portend for our collective futures?
Almost no one works in iron or steel any longer.
All our efforts are rather inward (or Cyberwardly) directed.
If we take those trends and project them forward, what kind of world could we expect to see in 100 years?
What does our mural of NY look like for 2083?
