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Did you know that the John A. Roebling Bridge in Cincinnati was built to test John A. Roebling's architecture and to see if it would work before he built the Brooklyn Bridge 20 years later?
At least that's the story I heard.
Song of Solomon 2:15
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(11-16-2015, 10:20 PM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: Did you know that the John A. Roebling Bridge in Cincinnati was built to test John A. Roebling's architecture and to see if it would work before he built the Brooklyn Bridge 20 years later?
At least that's the story I heard.
That is - essentially - true. The years may be off, but it is a fact Roebling designed the first suspension bridge and submitted the design in (several communities, I believe, including) New York. The folks in New York (and elsewhere) had never seen such a bridge and were skeptical of the concept. Proof of concept was achieved in Cincinnati with the Roebling Suspension Bridge (1865) and it was the first of its type in the world. Roebling subsequently designed the Brooklyn Bridge. There is kind of a cool statue of Roebling on the river bank in Covington with plans in one hand and waving his arm toward his first bridge with the other as if to say, "Look what I dreamed up - and it works!"
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Yes. I heard that story years ago as a kid and to this day I occasionally bore my seatmate at PBS with it.