Brooklyn Bridge, Star of the City: Here’s a Tour – The New York Times

When they were home in Brooklyn Heights, Emily Roebling and her husband, Washington, could look toward the East River and see how work was progressing on the Brooklyn Bridge. Washington was in charge of construction. He took over after his father, the bridge’s genius engineer, John Augustus Roebling, died in 1869. Then Washington suffered the bends working in the pneumatic caissons he had designed for the underwater foundations of the towers, and Emily saw the project through to completion.When the bridge opened in 1883, she was the first to cross it in a carriage.

Source: Brooklyn Bridge, Star of the City: Here’s a Tour – The New York Times