Robert Ridgway (engineer)


Robert Ridgway, sometimes spelled Robert Ridgeway, was an American civil engineer. He did not study engineering at any school, but worked 49 years for New York City in the construction of major projects, and became Chief Engineer of the Transit Commission in 1921. He became president of the American Society of Civil Engineers Metropolitan section. Further he became president of the national ASCE in 1925. The Ridgway Awards are an annual award of the ASCE Met section named for him.
At the time of his death, Ridgway was consulting Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes on Chicago's first subway. According to the December 20, 1938 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle, he died in Fort Wayne, Indiana after suffering a heart attack, while en route to New York after attending ground-breaking ceremonies for the Chicago Subway. He was 76.

Works

Major projects he worked on include the New Croton Aqueduct; the first NYC subway line; the first East River subway tunnel; the Catskill Aqueduct, the expansion of the IRT and BMT subways; and the construction of the IND subway.
In 1914, he was serving as Engineer of Subway Construction. A number of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with several listed in relation to one multiple property study, the "New York City Subway System MPS".
Works he is credited with include the following subway infrastructure projects: