Ambition Realized
Originally uploaded by Mark K_NJ
The story of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company is the story of the romance of industry; the saga of a great family....
I had the distinct honor of getting a tour of what will soon be the Museum of Contemporary Science in Trenton, New Jersey. But the story of where it's going can only be told from where it came from.
MoCS will be housed in one of the old Roebling buildings in Trenton. Back before the turn of the century, John Roebling was an engineer who would go on to fabricate some of the best wire rope there was. From these wire ropes would hang some of the best suspension bridges the world has seen: The Brooklyn Bridge, the Niagra Gorge Bridge, and yes, the Golden Gate Bridge, to name a few.
In 1848, Roebling chose to set up a wire rope factory in Trenton for a number of reasons, the principal ones being that it was near the Cooper Iron Works, his source of supply of wire; it was well equipped with transportation facilities of all sorts, roads, railroads, and canal and river boats; and it was readily accessible to the thriving eastern markets.
The Roebling story is remarkable and the building I was in, which will house the science center, is being kept to look basically the way it did back in Roebling's heyday. Crafting wire rope was not easy. It was hot and dirty and done day after day by the men and women that helped build Trenton into the "Trenton Makes, The World Takes" center of industry is was for awhile. Touring the building, you can almost hear the clank of hammer, and feel the heat of the furnaces used to wind and twist steel. It's a remarkable building and I hope the science center does well there. Springsteen sang about finding "yellow ore" in his song Youngstown and what it did for Youngstown, Ohio. He could have just as easily done a song about this too. This New Jersey history should not be lost.
I'll post some of these photos individually, as they do stand on their own, but wanted to do the mosaic as well.
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