![]() | |
Formerly |
|
---|---|
Company type | Privately held company |
Industry | Infrastructure engineering |
Founded | 1887Kansas City, Missouri | in
Founder | John Alexander Low Waddell |
Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Key people | CEO Sean A. Bluni, PE |
Services |
|
Website | hardestyhanover |
H&H is an American infrastructure engineering company specializing in the design and management of bridges and other transportation and architecture projects. The firm was founded in 1887 by John Alexander Low Waddell, a structural engineer who pioneered the design of large-scale moveable bridge. Originally incorporated in Kansas City, Missouri as J.A.L. Waddell, Consulting Engineer, the company was renamed throughout the early 20th century as Waddell added junior partners to the organization. In 1920, the firm moved its headquarters to New York City, where it would go on to design many important bridges int the area, such as Newark Bay Bridge (rail), the original Goethals Bridge, and Marine Parkway Bridge.
In recent decades the company has expanded its footprint to the fields of highway design and movable architecture, contributing to projects like U.S. Bank Stadium, the New York City Shed, the redevelopment of LaGuardia Airport, and other major interchanges of highways in New York City.
Waddell's private consultancy gained a reputation for "daring and unusual structures" with a modern approach to the bridge design, and construction process. [1] : 63 The company's first project, the Illinois Central Missouri River Bridge, was a swing bridge designed by Waddell in 1893 and built across the Missouri River. At the time of its construction, it was the longest swing bridge in the world with a moving span of 520 ft (158.5 m). [2]
A year later in 1894, Waddell designed the South Halsted Street Bridge over the Chicago River. As the world's first major vertical-lift bridge, the project had a significant impact on infrastructure design. [1] : 63
In 1899 Waddell promoted his chief draftsman Ira G. Hedrick to partner, renaming the firm Waddell & Hedrick. [3] This partnership produced what would become the company's oldest design still in operation as of 2021: the New Westminster Bridge.
In 1907 the company became known as Waddell & Harrington when Waddell partnered with John L. Harrington, former Chief Engineer of the Locomotive & Machine Company of Montreal. [3] While still headquartered in Kansas City, the firm also maintained offices in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. [4]
In 1908 Waddell & Harrington patented an improved Bascule bridge. [5] That summer they also filed the first of several patents for improvements to Waddell's earlier vertical-lift bridge designs, [6] [7]
In their time together, Waddell & Harrington designed at least thirty highway and railroad bridges, [8] [9] and four remain in operation as of 2021 (three of them in the iconic vertical-lift style): Hawthorne Bridge (1910), ASB Bridge (1911), Colorado St. (Arroyo Seco) Bridge (1913), and Murray Morgan Bridge (1913). [10]
In 1914, Waddell & Harrington announced the dissolution of their partnership effective in July of the following year. [11] : 923 Harrington would continue working with his colleague, draftsman Frank Cortelyou, in new firm known as Harrington, Howard & Ash (which would eventually become HNTB). [3] [12]
In 1915, Waddell promoted Needham Everett to junior partner, renaming the firm Waddell & Son. That same year, they celebrated the opening of the LS&MS Railway Bridge No. 6 in Chicago, IL, [10] and a satellite office in New York City, though the younger Waddell reportedly stayed behind to manage the Kansas City office through at least 1918. [13] In 1916, Shortridge Hardesty (who had previously been hand-picked to join the firm shortly after his 1908 graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute [14] : 63 ) was promoted to Designing Engineer. [15]
The firm did well, receiving many contracts during the post-war economic revival, [10] and the New York office became its headquarters in 1920.
Needham Everett died in 1927.
After the death of his son, Waddell continued to lead the firm, promoting Hardesty to Partner. [15] They continued to create important bridges; the CRRNJ Newark Bay Bridge (1926), original Goethals Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing (1928), and Marine Parkway Bridge (1937). In 1931 Waddell was personally honored with the American Association of Engineers' Clausen Gold Medal award for "distinguished service to the engineering profession", [16] and again in 1937 with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Norman Medal. He died in 1938 at the age of 84, [17] leaving Hardesty to run the company.
In 1945, Hardesty took on Clinton Hanover (former Chief of the New York City Bureau of Bridge Design) as a partner. [3] The duo's leadership saw completion of the Rainbow Bridge in 1941. Spanning Niagara Falls, the structure was honored with the 1941 American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) 1st Place "Class A" Prize Bridge Award for beauty. [18]
In the following decades, the company developed many other moveable and fixed bridges across New York State and beyond. One of its earliest forays into moveable architecture was an amusement ride for the 1964 New York World's Fair that took the form of a Ferris wheel, known as the Uniroyal Giant Tire. [19]
Among H&H's first highway projects was the Interstate 80 and Route 19 interchange in Paterson, New Jersey. [10] The company has continued to design roadways, most recently the reconstruction of LaGuardia Airport and Kew Gardens Interchange. The latter project features NEXT Beam technology in one of its 15 bridges. [20] The firm also designed the replacement William Cullen Bryant Viaduct between Flower Hill & Roslyn, New York. [21] [22]
In 2022, Hardesty & Hanover unveiled a new corporate brand & logo that complements recent company growth. Going forward, branding will identify the firm as H&H, with Hardesty & Hanover, LLC remaining the legal name. In 2022, the firm also received notification from the United States Patent and Trademark Office that the firm had been awarded a trademark designation for the key phrase “Designed to Amaze, Engineered to Last®” which had been used across the firm for more than four years. While the firm and our employees have multiple patents, this is the first trademark awarded to H&H. With 600 employees, the firm has 33 offices in the US and the UK.
The Hawthorne Bridge is a truss bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, joining Hawthorne Boulevard and Madison Street. It is the oldest vertical-lift bridge in operation in the United States and the oldest highway bridge in Portland. It is also the busiest bicycle bridge in Oregon, with over 8,000 cyclists and 800 TriMet buses daily. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2012.
The Aerial Lift Bridge, earlier known as the Aerial Bridge or Aerial Ferry Bridge, is a landmark in the port city of Duluth, Minnesota. The span began life in 1905 as the United States' first transporter bridge: Only one other was ever constructed in the country, Sky Ride in Chicago. The span was converted in 1929–1930 to a vertical-lift bridge, also rather uncommon, although there are six such bridges along Ontario's Welland Canal. It remains in operation. The bridge is owned and operated by the City of Duluth. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 22, 1973. The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains a nearby maritime museum.
Dr. John Alexander Low Waddell was a Canadian-American civil engineer and prolific bridge designer, with more than a thousand structures to his credit in the United States, Canada, as well as Mexico, Russia, China, Japan, and New Zealand. Waddell’s work set standards for elevated railroad systems and helped develop materials suitable for large span bridges. His most important contribution was the development of the steam-powered high-lift bridge. Waddell was a widely respected writer on bridge design and engineering theory, as well as an advocate for quality in higher education engineering programs. The company he founded in 1887, 'J.A.L. Waddell, Consulting Engineer,' would eventually become the modern day Hardesty & Hanover, a leading moveable bridge engineering firm. Many of Waddell's surviving bridges are now considered historic landmarks.
The New Westminster Bridge is a swing bridge that crosses the Fraser River and connects New Westminster with Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
The American Bridge Company is a heavy/civil construction firm that specializes in building and renovating bridges and other large, complex structures. Founded in 1900, the company is headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The firm has built many bridges in the U.S. and elsewhere; the Historic American Engineering Record notes at least 81. American Bridge has also built or helped build the Willis Tower, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, launch pads, resorts, and more. During World War II, it produced tank landing ships (LSTs) for the United States Navy. In 2020, American Bridge Company was acquired by Southland Holdings LLC.
The Historic Caddo Lake Drawbridge, also known as the Mooringsport Bridge, is a vertical-lift bridge that is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1914, to replace a ferry, by the Midland Bridge Company of Kansas City, Missouri, under authority of the Caddo Parish Police Jury. The lift span has been inoperable since the 1940s.
The Newark Bay Bridge of the Central Railroad of New Jersey (CNJ) was a railroad bridge in New Jersey that connected Elizabethport and Bayonne at the southern end of Newark Bay. Its third and final incarnation was a four-track vertical-lift design that opened in 1926, replacing a bascule bridge from 1904 which superseded the original swing bridge from 1887. The bridge served the main line of the CNJ, carrying daily interstate trains as well as commuter trains.
The Armour-Swift-Burlington (ASB) Bridge, also known as the North Kansas City Bridge and the LRC Bridge, is a rail crossing over the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri, that formerly also had an upper deck for automobile traffic.
HNTB Corporation is an American infrastructure design firm. Founded in 1914 in Kansas City, Missouri, HNTB began with the partnership made by Ernest Emmanuel Howard with the firm Waddell & Harrington, founded in 1907.
The I Street Bridge is a historic metal truss swing bridge which crosses the Sacramento River to link the capital city of Sacramento, California, with Yolo County to the west.
The Wilmington Rail Viaduct is a series of fills and bridges, about 4 miles (6.4 km) long, that carries the Northeast Corridor through the city of Wilmington, Delaware, above street level. Constructed between 1902 and 1908, the structure consists principally of fills supported by heavy stone retaining walls, punctuated with plate girder bridges over streets, and augmented by a few sections of brick arch viaduct. Its construction is typical of the Pennsylvania Railroad's architectural practices at the time, and the viaduct has been documented by the Historic American Engineering Record and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) as part of a series of grade crossing eliminations along the Northeast Corridor, the elevation of the rail line necessitated several other changes to rail infrastructure in Wilmington, including the construction of the Wilmington Shops at the east end of the viaduct, and the construction of the Wilmington Station and adjacent Pennsylvania Railroad Office Building along the elevated right-of-way.
Fisk & Robinson was one of the best-known bond houses in Wall Street in the early 20th century, dealing in United States Treasury security and bonds, New York City and other municipal bonds. It was prominently connected with the financing of railroads.
Ira Grant Hedrick was an American civil engineer who designed the Burnside Bridge in Oregon, the Red River Bridge, Clarendon, and Newport bridges in Arkansas, and many other bridges and viaducts. Hedrick designed many large scale bridges in Arkansas in late 1920s through early 1930s. Hedrick was also president of the Kansas City Viaduct and Terminal Railway Company. The Historic American Engineering Record says that he was "one of the outstanding engineers of the South".
Waddell & Harrington was an American engineering company that designed bridges from 1907 to 1915. It was formed in 1907 as a partnership of John Alexander Low Waddell (1854–1938) and John Lyle Harrington (1868–1942) and was based in Kansas City, Missouri, but had offices in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. The company designed more than 30 vertical-lift bridges for highways and railroads.
The Lincoln Highway Passaic River Bridge is a vehicular moveable bridge crossing the Passaic River at a point 1.8 mi (2.9 km) from the river mouth at Newark Bay in northeastern New Jersey, United States. The vertical lift bridge, along the route of the Lincoln Highway, carries U.S. Route 1/9 Truck and the East Coast Greenway between the Ironbound section of Newark and Kearny Point in Kearny. Opened in 1941, it is owned by and operated by the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and required by the Code of Federal Regulations to open on 4-hour notice for maritime traffic.
John Lyle Harrington was an American civil engineer and a leading expert in the field of moveable bridge design. He was a senior partner in several bridge engineering firms, President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1923-24, and Chief of the engineers' board advising the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
Lincoln Bush (1860–1940) was an American civil engineer and inventor, known for his work with railroads.
The Waddell "A" Truss Bridge is standardized truss bridge design that was first patented in 1893 by prolific civil engineer John Alexander Low Waddell. The design provided a simple low-cost, high-strength solution for use by railroads across the United States and Empire of Japan for short spans of around 100 ft. According to the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), "beyond its role in the growth of railroad transportation, the "A" truss is perhaps most historically significant when viewed within the context of Waddell's career and the emergence of the American bridge fabrication industry into international marketing."
The William Cullen Bryant Viaduct is a viaduct that carries four lanes of Northern Boulevard over Hempstead Harbor between the Incorporated Villages of Flower Hill and Roslyn, in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States.
The Mill Basin Bridge is a seven-lane, fixed girder bridge in Brooklyn. It is owned and maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) and spans Mill Basin inlet. Completed in February 2019, the span replaces a Bascule bridge originally constructed in 1940. The bridge carries passenger vehicles via the Belt Parkway and pedestrians and cyclists via the Jamaica Bay Greenway.