Work Begins on the Brooklyn Bridge

On January 2, 1870, crews started work on the Brooklyn Bridge, the suspension span meant to finally connect Manhattan and Brooklyn across the East River instead of leaving New Yorkers to the ferries. Its designer, John A. Roebling, never got to see any of it built: a ferry crushed his foot during a survey the summer before, and the tetanus that set in killed him within weeks. His son Washington Roebling, then 32, took over as chief engineer and later got hurt himself, disabled by decompression sickness from working in the underwater caissons that held up the bridge's towers. His wife Emily Warren Roebling ended up carrying messages and engineering instructions between her bedridden husband and the crews on site for years. The bridge did not open until May 24, 1883, thirteen years after that first day of work and after dozens of men had died building it.