Thread by @BillWeirCNN

Here's a fun #InternationalWomensDay story that starts with this tough SOB.
He set out to build a bridge unlike any the world and it was going well until his foot slipped from a pier piling and got smashed by a ferry.
As he lost his toes, he refused to scream.

Then John Roebling got tetanus and this brilliant engineer refused all medicine, insisting doctors only pour water on his bad foot.
His mind was sharp as his body seized and spasmed and before he slipped into a coma, he wrote out his plans...

For his oldest son Washington to finish the Brooklyn Bridge.

No pressure.

(Too much pressure, actually).

As they dug the massive, pressurized caissons under the East River, Washington got such a bad case of the bends, he couldn't move...

...and was confined to his room in Brooklyn Heights.

Imagine him watching through a telescope as cables snapped and men were killed.
He couldn't be Chief Engineer from a chair and needed boots on the steel to supervise the toughest men in New York, engineer, stress test and negotiate with steel-makers, grifters and Boss Tweed.

So he obviously picked his wife, Emily.
And she finished the Brooklyn Bridge

She was the first person to ride a carriage across and late in life, bought a few nice ones with fine horses and made her coachman ride in the back as she drove back and forth to NYU getting her law degree.

And today, they've just broken ground on Emily Roebling Plaza, the final piece in one of the best public spaces anywhere in the world.

Thanks, Emily.

There is so much more to the Roebling story and i keep waiting for @Lin_Manuel to read this hint, hint