London Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge, located near the Tower of London, has stood over the Thames River since 1894 and is one of London’s best-known landmarks. The middle of the bridge used to be raised about 50 times a day, but these days it is raised only about twice daily.

When the bridge was completed in 1894, The Times wasn’t overly impressed, especially in comparison to the Brooklyn Bridge. “The Tower Bridge recalls ours in the simple fact that two great piers rise up from the river or the river’s edge, and that toward the tops of these piers from the shore sides great cables slope upward,” The Times wrote on May 27, 1894. “Both are steel bridges. But with this similarity, and the superficial matter just mentioned, the likeness ends.

“The Tower Bridge is a good deal more ornamented than our bridge… (the) construction is like that of certain tall buildings of iron here and in Chicago, the fronts of which do not rest on a foundation wall, but consist of separate sections of brick or terra cotta, each resting on its own iron ledge.”

The Times added, “The square towers are screens or shams so far as the structure of the bridge is concerned; all they do is clothe the ugly iron skeleton and give shelter to the stairways and elevators. Attempts have been made to give an artistic look to them by putting stained glass in the windows and leaving niches on the outside for those busts and statues which seem never to come.”