Hundreds of steelworkers, sandhogs, and laborers constructed the Bayonne Bridge, linking Industrial Revolution methods with the new technologies of the twentieth century and providing employment during the early years of the Great Depression. After Othmar Ammann's design was approved, six assistant engineers from The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey designed the bridge's individual components and determined how they would be assembled through complex calculations of tension and compression. The arch's steel components were produced by the American Bridge Company in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, using the open hearth method, in which pig iron from blast furnaces was melted at 2,000 degrees, impurities were removed, and materials were added to create the needed steel. The Bayonne Bridge was the first major bridge to use manganese steel for its main arch structural members and rivets. Construction was labor intensive and dangerous, requiring excavation to bedrock for the arch shoes and approach supports, assembly of support column forms with three million pounds of steel, and pouring of nearly 28,000 cubic yards of concrete. Workers then selected pre-cast steel components shipped by rail to Kearney, New Jersey, moved by barge to the site, and lifted by the traveler, a moveable crane atop the bridge, to be attached into the arch. The work brought relief to hundreds of workers and their families during the Great Depression, but four workers lost their lives: Luh Kraya, George Slacks, Edward Barnhart, and Joseph Malinowski.
