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The first
The first way across the East River
It opened on May 24, 1883, as the first fixed crossing of the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened.
1,595.5 ftmain span, the longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened
The people
The engineer who kept the work going
John A. Roebling designed the bridge, and his son Washington Roebling was chief engineer. When Washington developed caisson disease, his wife, the engineer Emily Warren Roebling, kept contributing to the work, over more than ten years.
A good test
Twenty-one elephants
On May 17, 1884, Jumbo the elephant, one of the circus master P. T. Barnum's most famous attractions, led a parade of 21 elephants over the bridge. This helped lessen doubts about the bridge's stability.
Underneath
The bridge had wine cellars
From 1876 the city rented the large vaults under the bridge's Manhattan anchorage to pay for its upkeep, and they were used to store wine. One vault was called the Blue Grotto, because of a shrine to the Virgin Mary beside its entrance.
“Who loveth not wine, women and song, he remaineth a fool his whole life long.”
A fading inscription in a bridge cellar, found by New York magazine in 1978
A hard week
Six days after the opening
On May 30, 1883, six days after the opening, a woman fell down a stairway at the Brooklyn approach and caused a stampede in which at least twelve people were crushed and killed. The company was later acquitted of negligence in lawsuits, but it added emergency phone boxes and extra railings.
Day 3, evening
It comes after National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Brooklyn Bridge and the Wikipedia article Emily Warren Roebling, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.