Noted engineer was project director for Pittsburgh’s ‘T’
Whatever project engineer Herbert “Herb” Mandel turned his hand to inevitably turned out to be spectacular.
There were dozens of bridges, transportation systems — among them the “T” in Pittsburgh — and buildings, including the General Assembly Building of the United Nations.
The World War II veteran also was among the liberators of the Langenstein- Zwie ber ge Concentration Camp, part of the infamous Buchenwald Camp, in Germany in 1945.
For years, according to his family, Mr. Mandel didn’t speak much about his experiences while serving in the Army’s 8th Armored Division.
But during the last years of his life — and especially after speaking with the son of a camp survivor several years ago — Mr. Mandel found himself anxious to purge the memories.
“The concentration camp was something that he didn’t talk about for years, but once he started talking about it, he told us more about it,” said his daughter Rosanne Levine, of Squirrel Hill. “And I think that was a very poignant experience for him.”
Mr. Mandel, of Squirrel Hill, died in his sleep March 11. He was 98.
He was a Boy Scout and baritone horn player in his hometown of Chester, N.Y., the son of immigrants from Radom, Poland.
“He lived in a small town, where his father worked in a brush company,” said his son Elliott Mandel, of Arlington, Va. “He was a skilled brush maker who apprenticed in Poland. It sounded like [my dad] had a very idyllic childhood.”
How Mr. Mandel became interested in engineering is a mystery, family members said.
“I suspect it was a combination of his interests in subjects like math and physics, along with his experience in the Boy Scouts, which has a lot to do with building and constructing things,” Elliott Mandel said.
He met Charlotte Feldman at a party where attendees were asked to bring along a single friend.
“It turned out to be just them at the party,” his daughter said, laughing.
The couple married in August 1954. Mrs. Mandel died in 2012.
Mr. Mandel studied civil engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute after graduating high school in 1941, but left after just two years to join the war effort.
As a first lieutenant with the 293rd Engineer Construction Battalion, Mr. Mandel fought in the Battle of the Bulge, in the Rhineland area and in other campaigns in Central Europe.
As his battalion approached the Langenstein- Zwie ber ge camp at dawn April 11, 1945, it set up in a firing position. The soldiers had spent the night before trekking through the Harz Mountains.
When several prisoners clad in striped clothing approached them, though, the soldiers realized they had happened upon a concentration camp, which had recently been abandoned by the German guards.
While the Germans led the more able-bodied prisoners on a forced march farther into Germany, about 144 prisoners were left behind, too weak to make the journey.
In May 2021, when he spoke on a Zoom call to the son of one of the freed prisoners, Mr. Mandel described the scene in detail, including finding two mass graves.
“I’ve never forgotten it,” Mr. Mandel told the Post-Gazette in a story at the time. “I never could understand how the Nazis could be that cruel. They were human beings, too.”
Langenstein-Zwieberge had been home to more than 6,000 prisoners, forced to work in 12-hour shifts, excavating a tunnel system in the The kenberge Hills. The life expectancy of workers was six weeks.
After a sleepless night following the Zoom call, Mr. Mandel felt the need to further unburden himself, he said in the PG story.
“I had to purge myself of the thoughts of that camp,” he said. “Not that I expect to forget it. I don’t. But I’m sure that there had to be some kind of emotional relief.”
Until recently, “I had never even heard those stories,” recalled his son Arthur Mandel, of the Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City. “He didn’t talk to us about it, but one night at my parents’ winter home in Florida, he started talking about the concentration camp to my wife. I don’t know what prompted him to start talking about it.”
“I walked in on him telling our cousin about it,” his daughter Rosanne said.
“It was almost like he was sparing us this story,” Arthur Mandel said.
After his discharge in 1946, Mr. Mandel resumed his college education, graduating from Virginia Tech in 1948. He went on to earn a master’s degree in engineering at Yale University a year later.
As an engineer, Mr. Mandel worked on several high-profile projects, including his first -- as a structural designer of the United Nations General Assembly Building in the early 1950s.
He served as project manager for the $55 million Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge in Rhode Island.
In his resume, Mr. Mandel described it this way: “In 1963, after intermittent study of the crossing over several years, I was appointed project manager for the design and construction management of the Newport Bridge over the east passage of Narragansett Bay at Newport and Jamestown, Rhode Island. This crossing is today still the longest in New England, over two miles from abutment to abutment, and its main feature is a suspension bridge with a main span of 1,600 feet. It was opened in 1969.”
Along with four coastal bridges in Florida and another 11 bridges and culverts in Danbury, Conn., Mr. Mandel worked on transit projects at O’Hare Airport in
Chicago, the MARTA system in Atlanta, and a rail line that runs from Los Angeles to Long Beach in California.
He designed the 62nd Street Bridge in Pittsburgh and the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas -- referred to as the “bat” bridge for the hundreds of thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats that nest there.
According to his daughter, Mr. Mandel frequently said, “I had the best career in the world; I feel like someone handed me a giant Erector Set to play with for my whole life.”
He moved his family to Mt. Lebanon in 1977, when Mr. Mandel went to work as project director in the design and construction of the T system.
From the start, the Pittsburgh area was his adopted hometown, family members said.
“He actually won that job for his company,” Arthur Mandel said.
“You would think that moving as an 11th grader would be difficult, leaving friends and familiarity,” Elliott Mandel said. “But in actuality, it was fantastic. Everyone invited me everywhere -- I never experienced such a welcoming culture as when we moved to Pittsburgh.”
“I remember him very much wanting to live somewhere where the T was going, so Mt. Lebanon was perfect,” his daughter said.
Mr. Mandel accepted a job as vice president at GAI Consultants in 1986 and continued working as an adviser with the firm well into his
80s, his family said.
As a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, it was nothing but good luck that kept Mr. Mandel from attending services Oct. 27, 2018, the day a gunman opened fire, killing 11 worshippers and wounding six more.
“I would go every Saturday morning with my father,” his daughter recalled. “I had to work that Saturday, otherwise we would have been there.”
Mr. Mandel was an optimistic, ethical person with an incredible memory for detail, family members said.
“He remembered everything he ever learned and shared it freely but humbly,” his daughter said. “He raised us with the idea that it’s really important to be involved in the community, make a contribution and take responsibility.”
Along with his children, Mr. Mandel is survived by nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His funeral was March 13. Contributions may be made to Pittsburgh Promise, 1901 Centre Ave., Pittsburgh 15219; or Tree of Life Inc., 0 Woodland Road, Pittsburgh 15232-2899, designated for the Remember, Rebuild, Renew Campaign.