Renowned Historian David McCullough on Brooklyn: An Interview & An Event

David McCullough

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former Brooklynite, David McCullough (1776, S&S) will kick off the American Booksellers Association's "Welcome to Brooklyn" events at Hotel ABA 2007 (the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge) at BookExpo America this spring. On Wednesday, May 30, before setting off on walking tours led by a cadre of Brooklyn authors, booksellers will have the opportunity to hear the noted historian discuss some of the highlights of the "borough of kings," including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battle of Brooklyn.

McCullough is the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes (Truman and John Adams) and two National Book Awards (Mornings on Horseback and The Path Between the Seas, all S&S). Among his many other honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Book Foundation Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award.

McCullough's other books include The Johnstown Flood (S&S) and The Great Bridge. Most recently, he has been working on an illustrated edition of 1776, to be published by Simon & Schuster this fall.

BTW recently had the opportunity to talk to David McCullough via telephone from his home in Maine.

BTW: I understand that you once lived in Brooklyn.

David McCullough: Yes. In 1956 we moved to Brooklyn and lived in Brooklyn Heights, when I was first married. We were both totally star-struck with New York. We lived on Columbia Heights, which runs parallel to the river on the low-rent side that had no view. The rent was $140 a month. Don't you love it? And we could barely make it because I was being paid $5,000 as year as a trainee with a new magazine called Sports Illustrated.

Sometimes I wonder why we ever left. We still make an annual pilgrimage to Brooklyn and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to pay our respects.

What first drew you to write about Brooklyn?

My interest began because I lived there.... The idea to write about the Brooklyn Bridge came as a result of a conversation one day at lunch with the editor of a science magazine and an architect-engineer. They began talking about how the people who built the Brooklyn Bridge didn't know what they were in for -- all of the problems no one had resolved when they first set out to do it.

I was looking for the subject of my next book, and I had two offers from two different publishers to do another disaster book. One was on the San Francisco earthquake, and another was on the Chicago fire. I was being typecast in my very early 30s as "Bad News McCullough." But I wanted to do a subject that could be a symbol of affirmation, not once again the foolish shortsightedness of human beings.

As soon as they started talking about the Brooklyn Bridge, I realized that because of all these other tangential connections in my own life, it was my subject. I just knew it. I came out of the luncheon and went straight to the 42nd Street library, and I think I took the marble stairs to where the old card catalog used to be, the third floor, three at a time. I was just propelled by the idea. And I still go pay homage to the bridge at least once a year.

What will you be talking about at ABA's "Welcome to Brooklyn" Event at BEA?

I'll be talking about my whole association with Brooklyn and the writing of the book. What the Brooklyn Bridge means still today, and why it's a structure that has held the American imagination like none other.... Out of what was an era known for corruption and decadence could rise this emblematic structure representing the highest kinds of aspirations in society. Among other things, it's the antithesis of planned obsolescence. It was designed to last forever, and with proper care it will.

If you could pick up the Brooklyn Bridge and look underneath it, it would say "Made in America." There it is all these years later, still serving exactly its original purpose. And it was built in an age before the automobile had ever even been dreamed of. It's full of stories, full of myth. It's romantic. It's dramatic. It's a superb example of how engineering at its best is beautiful.

What are some of the sights that booksellers shouldn't miss while they're in Brooklyn?

They should certainly take a stroll around Brooklyn Heights. They should go to the great church [Plymouth Church], where Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother, Henry Ward Beecher, preached. He raised money to buy people out of slavery before the civil war. The church is a magnificent, historic structure with all kinds of importance.

They should go to the Greenwood Cemetery. The cemetery probably has more famous people buried there than almost any cemetery in the country. It's a magnificent with its trees and plantings. It's an arboretum as well as a cemetery.

And Fort Greene Park, which has the great memorial to the men who died on the British prison ships. In fact, that's where they should go first.

But there's a lot else, a great variety, needless to say -- it's Brooklyn! Oh, and the Brooklyn Historical Society is an absolute jewel, a New York landmark and treasure house.

You have said that choosing a biographical subject was like picking a roommate, and that you were better off with someone you like. Who are some of Brooklyn's historical figures you wouldn't mind rooming with?

Well, you're definitely better off with someone who you find interesting and tolerable. It helps to like them. People read, and should read, books about atrocious human beings, but that's not my choice to write them.

I'd love to write a book about Walt Whitman, but Walt Whitman's been written about seven times seven. Henry Cruse Murphy, who was a political leader there and an interesting figure. And Henry Ward Beecher. There was just a very good biography published about him by Debby Applegate [The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, Three Leaves].

How did the idea of doing an illustrated edition 1776 come about?

It's hard to pin down the idea to one person.... It wasn't my idea, but I strongly believe that history should never be seen as only political, military, and social issues. It is about that, of course. But it's also about art and music and literature, the theater and science medicine and finance. It's about everything, but, particularly, I feel that art must not be left out, that very often what lasts longest about society or civilization is its art, far beyond the politics or social issues. In some instances, all we know about civilization is its art, ancient Egypt for example.

The 18th century was the time of the great Enlightenment and its political philosophers, people like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Edmund Burke, and others. It was also the time of Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley and Charles Willson Peale and John Trumbull and Romney and Zoffany and Gainsborough. In the case of the subject 1776, we can bring in the works of all those painters, quite naturally -- and not simply as an illustration of history, but as part of history.

Will there be paintings associated with Brooklyn in the new edition?

Yes. To me, the most dramatic painting of all is one of the Battle of Brooklyn by Alonzo Chappel. The Battle of Brooklyn was the biggest battle of the Revolutionary War -- there were over 40,000 people involved. If the Battle of Brooklyn had a national park like Gettysburg, all open and commemorated as hallowed ground, people would go there and say, good heavens, I had no idea of the scale of this. But because it's built over except for the cemetery, people don't realize what a huge battle it was.

We're also inclined to forget it because we lost. It was a triumph of the British. Everything we did went wrong. We were very new at it. Washington had never commanded an army in battle before in his life. He had a lot still to learn. Now the escape route, the escape from Brooklyn at night by the Continental Army under Washington, was in effect the Dunkirk of the revolution. They crossed the East River by boats, which is another whole incredible story. They did it -- they got the army off without the British ever knowing. Exactly the route they took is where the bridge stands. So in a sense if you talk about the Brooklyn Bridge or the Battle of Brooklyn, you're talking about the same path.

Are you working on any new projects?

I'm working on an idea or two, but until I know whether they will work, I'm not talking about them. -Interview by Karen Schechner