BRILLIANT CAREER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 11

BRILLIANT CAREER

A GREAT ENGINEER

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YORK, sth February.

If one were asked to name the man who has had the most; extraordinary career in America, it is likely the first choice would fall on B"iph Modjeski, pianist, protege of Paderewski,.,pupil of Josef Hofmann's father and builder of the longest bridge in the world, who was last week honoured by the United States with the John Fritz gold medal as "an engineer of great bridges, com: billing the principles-, of strength and beauty." Modjeski, now GS,; was the son of Madame Modjeska, famous tragedienne, who had a contract for life with the Imperial Theatre at Warsaw, who was a favourite in London, and received the then princely salary of 50,000 dollars a year for a tour of the United States in 1877. Her son, a rare pianist, couJd not resist his impulse to be an engineer, and his mother's trip to' America was really made to satisfy his desire, at the age of 16, to see the machinery at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia, where in later years he built the greatest bridge of its day. He knew ' his mother's plays by heart, and when she was indisposed took her place at rehearsals. They were greatly alike, and the pair created a sensation when she fitted him into a wig; and, dressed in her clothes, he "doubled" for her in receiving four wealthy bachelors who called on her. It was- whjle he was acting as her advance agent that his chance came. WONDEKFUL BBIDGES. As a wide-eyed immigrant boy, Modjeski walked over Brooklyn Bridge, not realising that the City of New York would one day engage him as consulting engineer to report on the design and to supervise the • construction of its twin,- the Manhattan Bridge. Eehearsing for his mother at Toronto, he had no idea that the Canadian Government would need his help one day. The Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence collapsed when partly completed, carrying 80 workmen to their death. A new Commission was selected, with representatives from England, Canada, and the United States. Only the Americanised Pole, Modjeski,. remained until the £3,500,000 bridge Was completed. His bridges, including the Delaware Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the world, which took six years to build, now dot the countryside from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, from Maino to California. He rebuilt the Omaha Bridge . over the Missouri while trains came and wont on it. He was a member of a CommiEsion of three that reported on the feasibility of the Holland vehicular tunnel, under the Hudson, completed three years ago at a cost of £7,000,000. He built an even longer span than the Delaware, the Ambassador Bridge, connecting Michigan with Ontaria from Detroit to Windsor, which was dedicated and opened two months ago. . Modjeski has had many narrow escapes from death, duo to his habit . of crawling over every part of his bridges during their construction. Once, dressed in overalls, he was watching the final girders of a bridge over the Mississippi being lowered into place. A steel pin weighing a tori, lying loose, began to roll toward hiniy and before it was checked it struck the plank on which he stood. As he fell to the river he grasped a rope and swung there till he was hauled to safety.