DUMBO
Under the bridge, and named for it
The Roeblings, the cables, and the warehouses after.
4 pieces in this section
- Roebling used steel wire when everyone else used ironThe Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883 with steel-wire cables, a first at that scale, and a contractor who supplied substandard wire anyway. The bridge carries the extra strands that were added to cover it.
- Emily Roebling ran the bridge for eleven yearsAfter her husband was disabled by caisson disease she carried the engineering to the site, dealt with the trustees, and was first across when it opened.
- The men who dug the foundations came up wrongCompressed-air work under the river caused decompression sickness before anyone understood it. The tower footings are the reason the disease got a name.
- Warehouses became lofts because nobody wanted themThe industrial waterfront emptied, the rents were nothing, and the name was invented by residents to be ugly enough to deter developers.
