January 3

On the 3rd in 1870, after years of planning ground was finally broken for the construction of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. Today this iconic structure is referred to simply as the Brooklyn Bridge. It wasn’t really a groundbreaking, more of a ‘get-this-water-the-hell-out-of-here-breaking’ because the dredging necessary to prepare the riverbed of the East River began on that day.
The first person to cross the bridge was master mechanic E. F. Harrington on August 25, 1876. He did so while sitting in a boatswain’s chair which he pulled across the span as it hung from the first wires connecting the Brooklyn and New York towers prior to the construction of the cables that would connect the two.
The bridge spans a total distance of 5,989 feet of which 1,595 feet 6 inches is over the East River.