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A L F R E D H E D E FI N E
1 906- 1 981
BY THOMAS R. KUESEL
ALFRED HEDEFINE a distinguished bridge and structural engineer,
died on January 26, 1981, in Englewood, New Jersey. For twenty
years a partner and principal of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade &
Douglas of New York, he directed the design of many notable
bridges, including the Newport suspension bridge in Rhode Island
and the Fremont Bridge at Portland, Oregon, as well as New ier-
sey's Garden State Parkway.
Alfred Hedefine was born in Newport News, Virginia, on
March 9, 1906. He studied civil engineering at Rutgers University
(B.S. in civil engineering, 1929' and the University of Illinois (M.S.
in civil engineering, 1931~.
When he graduated in the midst of the Great Depression, the only
job he could find in the construction industry was operating a pile
driver on a power plant project in Brooklyn. After a year, he
obtained a six-week temporary assignment with Waddell & Har-
desty, checking calculations for a bridge design, during which he so
impressed Dr. Shortridge Hardesty that he was given a full-time job,
which was itself a major award in the 1930s. His job was to work on
the design of the Mill Basin bascule bridge of the Belt Parkway in
Brooklyn, and innovations that he developed on this project became
the basis for a thesis on bascule bridges, which earned him a civil
engineer's degree from the University of Illinois in 1942. This was
followed by the design of the Marine Parkway vertical lift bridge in
Brooklyn, the Rainbow Arch over Niagara Gorge, and the St.
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
George's tied arch over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, each
of which established new standards for excellence in the bridge
design for its type.
For the theme building of the 1939 New York World's Fair, the
architects conceived a 700-foot-tall spike and a 200-foot-diameter
hollow globe- the Trylon and Perisphere. Architecturally striking,
they were structurally unprecedented. Alfred Hedefine was selected
to prepare the structural design, which was accomplished entirely by
hand calculation a generation before the development of electronic
computers. His paper on the design of the Trylon and Perisphere
earned the Thomas Fitch Rowland Prize of the American Society of
Civil Engineers in 1942.
While with Waddell & Hardesty, he taught in the evening school
at New York University and continued his own education with spe-
cial studies at Columbia University in the then new discipline of soil
mechanics, and at New York University in aviation engineering. At
the outset of World War II, he was called as a special consultant to
the Department of Defense and to the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air
Command. He served from 1943 to 1945 in England with the
Eighth Air Force on photoreconnaissance work.
In 1945 he returned to Hardesty & Hanover, the successors to
Waddell & Hardesty, as an associate of the firm. Recognizing the
changing climate of the design professions, he advocated the under-
taking of professional business development. This was a departure
from the traditional consulting engineer position whereby commis-
sions come to an engineer solely because of his eminence. Disagree-
ment on this philosophy led to a split with Hardesty & Hanover, and
in 1948 Mr. Hedefine moved to Parsons Brinckerhoff Hall &
Macdonald.
Starting as a Principal Associate and Head of the Bridge Depart-
ment, he was admitted to the partnership in 1952. He became a
Senior Vice-President of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas,
and served as President from 1965 until his retirement in the early
1970s. In this second career he was responsible for pioneering efforts
in the planning, design, and construction of bridges, tunnels, rapid
transit systems, airfields, and marine terminals throughout the
world.
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ALFRED HEDEFINE
113
His outstanding bridge project was the Newport Bridge in Rhode
Island, which was the first major suspension bridge to use prefabri-
cated, parallel-wire strands, a significant advance in bridge cable
construction. This project also involved developing procedures for
driving piles under water at depths up to 162 feet, the deepest ever
attempted, and for placement of the largest amount of structural
concrete ever placed under water (more than 90,000 cubic yards).
The project received awards for excellence in engineering design
from the New York Association of Consulting Engineers, the Con-
sulting Engineers Council, the American Iron and Steel Institute,
and the American Society of Civil Engineers. It also earned Mr.
Hedef~ne a patent for a system of prestressed posttensioned suspen-
sion bridge cable anchorage.
An unexpected tribute to the soundness of the Newport Bridge
design came in February 1981 when a 50,000-ton oil tanker collided
with one of the main piers, scoring a direct hit in a dense fog. The
bow of the ship was shortened 10 feet by the impact, but the bridge
did not budge, and the only damage it suffered was an enormous
blotch of gray paint spread over the end of the pier.
The Fremont Bridge in Portland, Oregon, is the third-longest
arch bridge in the world, with a main span of 1,255 feet. It is a
unique double-deck, three-span stiffened tied arch, which was
selected for its clean architectural lines and its structural efficiency,
after consideration of many alternatives. The analysis of this exceed-
ingly complex space frame structure required development, under
Mr. Hedefine's direction, of a new computer-aided analytic method-
ology. The Fremont Bridge design received awards from the Ameri-
can Institute of Steel Construction and the Lincoln Arc Welding
Foundation.
Among Mr. Hedefine's many other bridge projects, the Arthur
Kill Bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey still holds the
record (558 feet) as the world's longest vertical lift span. His designs
for the 62nd Street Bridge in Pittsburgh and the Martin Luther
King, fir., Memorial Bridge in Richmond won architectural and
engineering awards. He was also involved in notable tunnel projects,
including studies for a proposed immersed tube railway tunnel for
the English Channel and an award-winning proposal for an
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
immersed highway-rail tube supported on an underwater rock dike
for the Straits of Messina international design competition in 1973.
In the fields of civil engineering, he personally directed the design
and construction of the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, pre-
pared criteria for design and construction of military airfields that
became a standard for the U.S. Air Force, and developed a unique
concept for an automated vertical storage and retrieval system for
handling large shipping containers.
Alfred Hedefine was active in many professional societies, includ-
ing the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engi-
neering, for which he served on the U. S. Council and the
International Permanent Committee Policy-Making Body. For
twenty years he was an active member of the Committee on Steel
Structures of the American Railway Engineering Association and
participated in the development of their standard specifications for
fixed and movable bridges. He was a Fellow of the American Society
of Civil Engineers, serving in various offices from 1942 to 1954, and
of the American Institute of Consulting Engineers. His other profes-
sional memberships included those in the Society of American Mili-
tary Engineers, National Society of Professional Engineers,
Engineering Institute of Canada, and The Moles (the honorary
tunneling fraternity).
His academic attainments earned him membership in Phi Beta
Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi; he was one of the few individ-
uals ever to receive high recognition in liberal arts, engineering, and
science. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
1973. In addition, he was a member of the New York Academy of
Science and of the Cosmos Club. In 1975 he was awarded an honor-
ary degree of Doctor of Science by Rutgers University. He was a
member of the Board of Trustees of Rutgers and active in many of its
committees.
In addition to his professional accomplishments, Alfred Hedefine
was an accomplished musician. He served as President and Chair-
man of the Board of Trustees of the Guillmant Organ School, the
oldest organ school in the country, founded in 1899. He was a
Trustee of the Sussex County Music Foundation, and a member of
the Board of Directors of the Bohemians, a New York musicians'
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ALFRED HEDEFINE
115
club. He enjoyed playing the organ in his home at Lake Mohawk,
New Jersey, and for some years served as host of a classical music
radio program that he taped in the music room of his home.
He is survived by his wife, the former Julia Ann Fullagar, and a
son, Alfred II, and three grandchildren, as well as by a generation of
civil engineers who grew under his guidance, benefited from his wise
counsel and from his personal and professional uniqueness.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
civil engineers
