"Brooklyn Bridge Park sunset" by dumbonyc is licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
High-fiving the ghost of Emily Roebling
Brooklyn Bridge Park breaks ground on the last stretch of shoreside oasis.
Brooklyn Bridge Park has been an invaluable oasis for countless Brooklynites during this hell year. Waterfront! Riverside! Bridges! Speeding e-bikes! So it comes as an enticing bit of news that the borough broke ground on its final section yesterday—the space underneath the Brooklyn Bridge itself.
The development will be named in honor of Emily Roebling, the engineer who completed of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband Washington Roebling developed caisson, also known as the bends or neurological decompression sickness. (Trust us: as stressed as we all are, you do not want to decompress like him.)
Roebling (Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum)
Instead, you’ll be able to decompress less lethally once the extension adds two acres of parkland to the shoreline, connecting the DUMBO section of Brooklyn Bridge Park with the southern piers.
“We look forward to enjoying a completed park that flows seamlessly from north to the south, a significant milestone of the park, as well as the amazing opportunity to revel in the rich history of the Brooklyn Bridge,” Eric Landau, Brooklyn Bridge Park president, told the Eagle.
A bit about that history: Emily Roebling herself was the first to ride across the bridge from the Brooklyn side, carrying a rooster as a symbol of victory, because why not. Also attending the bridge’s opening day, May 24, 1883, was President Chester A. Arthur.
Post script: The New York Times didn’t run an obituary for Roebling, who died in 1903, until 2018 as a part of their “Overlooked” series that gives due to the important non-white, non-men the obit desk overlooked through the years.
