One Potato Review

With its open truss structure, the Brooklyn Bridge was actually designed to be six times stronger than it needed to be by the standards of the day. Of course, it’s a credit to John Roebling’s overkill that this landmark remains such a crucial bit of infrastructure at one of the world’s busiest crossroads 126 years after its completion. While this is surely one of the grandest accomplishments in New York City’s history, it is probably harder to fathom for children than something like the 102 floors of the Empire State Building, so this inspired telling of the bridge’s beginnings enlists the services of P.T. Barnum’s circus elephants – all two hundred thousand pounds of them – to convey not only the massive strength and durability of what was then the world’s longest bridge, but also the tangible sense of wonder of “schoolteachers, bankers, cabinet makers” and anyone else who did not necessarily realize they were witnessing history, for all the lessons that implies. With its period scenery and birds-eye panoramas, this plainspoken narrative affords the spectacle its awesome due.