Steve Brodie (bridge jumper)

Steve Brodie
Steve Brodie circa 1885
Born	December 25, 1861 (1861-12-25) Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Died	January 31, 1901 (1901-02-01) (aged 39) San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Actor

Steve Brodie (December 25, 1861 – January 31, 1901) was an American from Manhattan, New York City who on July 23, 1886, jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived. The supposed jump, of which the veracity was disputed, gave Brodie publicity, a thriving saloon and a career as a performer.

Brodie's fame persisted long past his death, with Brodie portrayed in films and with the slang term "Brodie"—as in to "do a Brodie"—entering the language, meaning to take a chance or a leap, specifically a suicidal one.

The bridge, then known as the East River Bridge, had opened just three years before Brodie's claimed jump. A swimming instructor from Washington, D.C. named Robert Emmet Odlum, the brother of women's rights activist Charlotte Odlum Smith, was killed while attempting the same stunt in May 1885.

The jump supposedly made by Brodie was from a height of 135 feet (41 m), the same as a 14-story building. The contemporary New York Times account said the jump was from a height of about 120 feet (37 m).

The New York Times backed his account of the jump and said that Brodie practiced for the leap by making shorter jumps from other bridges and ships' masts, and that it was witnessed by two reporters. He leaped into the East River, feet first, and emerged uninjured, though with pain on his right side. He was jailed after the jump. The Times described Brodie as a "newsboy and long-distance pedestrian" who jumped from the bridge to win a $200 bet, equal to $5,300 today. In other accounts he is described as a bookmaker and gambler.

A Bowery storekeeper named Isaac Meyers claimed that he encouraged Brodie to jump off the Brooklyn bridge after Brodie said that he wanted to be famous.

Another account holds that Moritz Herzber, a liquor dealer, offered to back a saloon for Brodie if he made the jump and lived.

If true, he would have been the first person to have jumped off the bridge and survived, but his claim was disputed. It was subsequently claimed that a dummy was thrown from the bridge and that Brodie fell out of a row boat.

After the jump, Brodie opened a saloon at 114 Bowery near Grand Street, which also became a museum for his bridge-jumping stunt. Among the decorations was an affidavit from the boat captain who claimed to have pulled him from the water. He became an actor capitalizing on his reputation, appearing in the vaudeville musicals Mad Money and On the Bowery, and opened a saloon in Buffalo, New York.