Rands In Repose: The Makers of Things
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2009/03/23/the_makers_of_things.html

"We take bridges for granted now, but back in the 1800s, bridges were in beta. They fell. One out of every four bridges… fell""We Are Defined By What We Build The Brooklyn Bridge was built from 1870 until 1883."

Rands posts a nice optimistic counter to current economic gloom, citing the Brooklyn Bridge and other 19th century NYC architecture.

History of the Brooklyn Bridge

Truly inspiring

We need a new version of ourselves and that’s going to involve bright, unexpected ideas from those we least expect them from, and they’re going to strike you as impossible. All you need to do to understand these terrifyingly ambitious ideas is to look back at what we’ve already done to understand what we can do.