Moissief, Leon S(olomon) (1872-1943)

Latvian- born bridge engineer. He helped design the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Queensboro Bridges. As an independent consulting engineer (1915-40), he was involved with suspension-bridge projects including the Delaware River Bridge (Philadelphia), the George Washington, Triborough, and Bronx-Whitestone (New York, New York), the Tacoma Narrows (Tacoma, Washington), and the Mackinac Straits (Michigan). He published numerous influential papers on the design and construction of long-span bridges.

Born in Riga, Latvia, he studied at the Baltic Polytechnic Institute in Riga before emigrating to New York, New York, with his family in 1891. There he studied civil engineering at Columbia University (1892-95) and worked with the New York Department of Bridges (1898-1910).