Brooklyn Bridge Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City. It connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, spanning the East River. The Brooklyn Bridge has a main span of and a height of above mean high water. It is one of the oldest roadway bridges in the United States and was the world's first steel-wire suspension bridge, as well as the first fixed crossing across the East River. The Brooklyn Bridge started construction in 1869 and was completed fourteen years later in 1883. It was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and the
East New York, Brooklyn of salt marshes and several creeks, which drained into Jamaica Bay. These areas were originally settled by the Jameco Native Americans, and later used by the Canarsee and Rockaway tribes as fishing grounds. In the 1650s, Dutch colonists began settling in the eastern sections of Brooklyn, forming the towns of Flatbush, Bushwick, and New Lots (the predecessor to East New York). The area along with the rest of Brooklyn and modern New York City was ceded to the British Empire in 1664. A few 18th Century roads, including the ferry road or "Palmer Turnpike" from Brooklyn to Jamaica, passed through