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The Brooklyn Bridge

 

            ï»¿The  Brooklyn Bridge  is a hybrid  cable-stayed/suspension bridge  in  New York City  and is one of the oldest  bridges  of either type in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the  boroughs  of  Manhattan  andBrooklyn  by spanning the  East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3  m), and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed. It was originally referred to as the  New York and Brooklyn Bridge  and as the  East River Bridge, but it was later dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name coming from an earlier January 25, 1867, letter to the editor of theBrooklyn Daily Eagle,[7]  and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an icon of New York City, and was designated a  National Historic Landmark  in 1964[6][8][9]  and a  National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark  in 1972.[10].
             The Brooklyn Bridge was initially designed by German immigrantJohn Augustus Roebling, who had previously designed and constructed shorter suspension bridges, such as  Roebling's Delaware Aqueduct  in  Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania,  Waco Suspension Bridge  in  Waco, Texas, and theJohn A. Roebling Suspension Bridge  in  Cincinnati, Ohio.
             While conducting surveys for the bridge project, Roebling sustained a crush injury to his foot when aferry  pinned it against a  piling. After amputation of his crushed toes he developed a  tetanus  infection which left him incapacitated and soon resulted in his death, not long after he had placed his 32-year-old sonWashington Roebling  in charge of the project.[11]  Washington Roebling also suffered a paralyzing injury as a result of  decompression sicknessshortly after the beginning of construction on January 3, 1870.[12]  This condition, first called "caisson disease" by the project physician Andrew Smith, afflicted many of the workers working within the  caissons.


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