From a city of 30, 000 people at the time of the Revolution, New York City's population mushroomed to over a million eighty years later. The rise of the Brooklyn Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time, represented the city bursting onto the world stage. After the great bridge rose out of the depths of the river floor to tower over the booming metropolis. Just three short years later the Statue of Liberty would rise in the harbor, and steel frames would allow buildings to reach for the stars, but it all started with the Brooklyn Bridge.