The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge [Paperback]

Gay Talese (Author), Bruce Davidson (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003

With a new preface and afterword by the author and drawings by Lili Rethi.

Towards the end of 1964, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge—linking the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island with New Jersey—was completed. It remains an engineering marvel almost forty years later—at 13,700 feet (more than two and a half miles), it is still the longest suspension bridge in the United States and the sixth longest in the world. Gay Talese, then early in his career at the New York Times, closely followed the construction, and soon after the opening his book The Bridge appeared. Never before in paperback, it remains both a riveting human drama of politics and courage, and a demonstration of Talese’s consummate skills as a reporter and storyteller. His memorable narrative—accompanied, as then, by the astonishingly beautiful working drawings of Lili Rethi—will now captivate a new generation of readers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Gay Talese is known for his daring pursuit of "unreportable" stories, for his exhaustive research, and for his formally elegant style. These qualities, arguably, are the touchstones of the finest literary journalism. Talese is often cited as one of the founders of the 1960s "New Journalism," but he has always politely demurred from this label, insisting that his "stories with real names" represent no reformist crusade, but rather his own highly personal response to the world as an Italian-American "outsider."

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802776442
• ISBN-13: 978-0802776440
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,031,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Awful Amazon Kindle Quality - Great Book, June 21, 2011

By 

James P. Crawford - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (Kindle Edition)

This is a great title to read if you are interested in Gay Telese. However, be wary of the kindle edition that Amazon is selling here. It is so loaded with typos that the end of chapter 7 can be unreadable. I found myself having to infer the words the author had originally written. The fact that Amazon is charging $10 for this quality is a total rip off. Do yourself a favor and buy a used paper copy of the book for far cheaper so you can read it as the author intended. Support any used/local book seller over Amazon.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its All About the People, March 5, 2006

By 

F. R. W. Miles "unkawo" (Oak Hill, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (Paperback)

My Uncle was a "boomer." I never understood that much of his life when I was a kid growing up. He would roll into town in his big car with all of his clothing hanging from a rod across the back seat. He was a big man and a drinker and a whiz at poker, pool, and any game of chance. I never understood my Uncle then. He respected his older sister, my Mother, and was always at odds with my Father. He had part of his wages sent to my Mother to hold for him so he wouldn't spend it all. After reading "The Bridge" I understand my Uncle a little better.

While it is a story of the bridge, it is more a story of the people that created the bridge - from those that planned it, designed it, gave up their homes for it, those that built it, and those that maintain it.

It is one of the finest books that I have read - a treasure from start to finish.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple story of things larger than life, February 9, 2005

By 

Phil Carlucci (Valley Stream, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (Paperback)

In "The Bridge", Gay Talese tells the story of the men behind the scenes, the men who do the dirty work in bridge-building (as well as other city building projects) without the recognition, the speeches, or the parades. Talese centers the story around the construction of the Verrazano Bridge in New York, one of the world's largest and most impressive pieces of architecture built by some of the world's bravest and least heralded men.

You can tell that Talese spent a great deal of time with these men, their families, and the people most affected by the Verrazano's construction in the 1960's -- the residents of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Most of the book is a collection of anecdotes focusing on the life of a "boomer", in which bridgebuilding and ironworking is seemingly passed down from generation to generation; the outrage in Brooklyn over the condemnation of hundreds of homes and businesses, who these Brooklynites were and where they went; the Indians who drove home to the Canadian border on weekends to see their families before leaving Sunday night to drive back down to the job; and so on.

Talese sheds a sufficient amount of light on the actual bridge construction, as well as some history and the famous designer, Othmar Ammann. He conveys perfectly the emotional ties people have to the bridge (both positive and negative), the almost magnetic pull the work has to those men who have building in their blood, and the "fever" they experience when the job is done. You'll never have heard of these men before, because they're gone to the next job by the time the final touches are put on, and only the politcians and designers find their names in print or smile for the cameras. It's a story of human emotion and accomplishment, and of a very proud fraternity of men, that Talese tells skillfully.