BY KEVIN DUGGAN
She’s fi nally getting her
plaza in history!
A planned civic square beneath
Brooklyn Bridge that
will mark the fi nal section of
Brooklyn Bridge Park will be
named after Emily Roebling,
who oversaw the completion of
the borough’s iconic namesake
span, local greenspace stewards
announced Wednesday.
“We are proud to announce
that we will be naming this
fi nal section of the park offi
cially as Emily Roebling
Plaza,” said Brooklyn Bridge
Park president Eric Landau at
a groundbreaking ceremony
at Water and New Dock streets
on Dec. 9.
The two-acre plaza will
open in Dec. 2021 and honor
Roebling, who took over the
helm of the bridge’s construction
after her husband Washington
Roebling became bedridden
with caisson disease,
also known as the bends, and
one of the 19th-century pioneer’s
living descendants said
she paved the way for women
across the nation.
“It changed a lot of people’s
minds in America at that
time to see a woman in such
an unprecedented position of
responsibility on what was
unquestionably the most ambitious
architectural feat of its
time,” said Emily’s great-great
grandson Kriss Roebling.
The move follows a push by
local preservationists earlier
this year to name the plaza
after Roebling rather than
“Brooklyn Bridge Plaza.”
The 19th-century Brooklynite
was the fi rst person to
cross the bridge following its
completion — reportedly riding
inside a horse-drawn carriage
with a rooster, symbolic
of victory, on her lap.
But despite her contribution
to one of the world’s greatest
structures, she was often
overshadowed in the history
books by her husband and father
in-law, John Roebling, a
German-American suspension
bridge engineer who designed
the monument.
Emily would commute from
her Brooklyn Heights home
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down to the construction site,
traversing the square and
climbing up the spiral staircase
at the Brooklyn tower,
and her living relative said her
former workplace will be a fi tting
tribute to the trailblazer.
“This was undoubtedly
a loud, smelly, frenetic construction
site for the over 10
years that she was actually on
site bossing around the other
engineers,” Roebling said. “So
it was her place of work and I
think that she would just be so
delighted by the fact that this
place that she dedicated so
much of her life to, that it will
become this beautiful part of
this park and in her honor.”
The $8 million overhaul of
the fenced-off lot into a new public
square marks the fi nal portion
of the decade-and-a-half redevelopment
of Brooklyn Bridge
Park, from a former industrial
waterfront into the sprawling
1.3-mile long lawn it is today.
The lot will be transformed
into a public space aimed
at better connecting Brooklyn’s
Front Yard between the
Dumbo section and the southern
piers.
A portrait of Emily Roebling,
Charles-Émile-Auguste Carolus-Duran
IN THE FAMILY: Emily Roebling’s great-great-grandson Kriss (second
from right), with his wife Meg, and children Chace, 11, and August, 14.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Making her-story
Brooklyn Bridge plaza to be named
after pioneering Emily Roebling
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