21. The Brooklyn Bridge’s Earliest Days Were Marked by Tragedy
One of New York City’s greatest icons, The Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River and connects Brooklyn to Manhattan. Opened in 1883 and still in use almost a century and a half later, it is among the Big Apple’s most famous structures. It is also registered as a National Historic Landmark, as the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge. Like many major infrastructure projects, particularly those of the nineteenth century, building the bridge, whose construction began in 1869 and lasted for 14 years, was no picnic.
Workers toiled in poorly ventilated underwater chambers where many of them ended up with decompression sickness, while some were outright paralyzed. However, the work went on, and when the bridge was finally completed and opened to the public on May 24, 1883, it was a sensation, marked by fireworks and civic pride. Then a series of weird flukes came together six days later, leading to a disaster that dampened the good mood.
