Episode Details

Photographer Barbara Mensch’s new book—“In the Shadow of Genius: The Brooklyn Bridge and Its Creators”--- is a love letter to the Brooklyn Bridge. As New Yorkers, we may cross it many times in our lives, but rarely do we stop to think about the role it has played in the city’s history and culture. And few of know much about the three people who were most involved in creating it: John, Washington and Emily Roebling. In her book Mensch traces the lives of these three remarkable people and the bridge’s evolution over the 16 years it took to build it---before it opened in 1883. .

Her writing and photographs dramatize--- in ways previously unknown to us-- how the Brooklyn Bridge is truly a work of genius.

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