Henry Turkeltaub

On September 30, 2002, a unique person left us with the passing of Henry Turkeltaub. Henry will be remembered as a loyal American and a good citizen who loved his country. He was a very devoted family man who always said that a loving, caring family was the most important factor in life. He was very proud of his family. He was a kind person and helped those who were in need of assistance. Henry had a strong work ethic and loved his work. He was happy and fulfilled, not only by the results, but by the process as well. Henry Turkeltaub was born October 5, 1906, in New York and died five days before his 96th birthday at the Good Samaritan Center in Davenport. After graduating from Brooklyn Technical High School, he attended college at Polytechnic Institute of New York, graduating as an engineer, the first person in his family to do so. As an engineer, he designed many different structures around the world, including a barge loader system for South America and a power plant in Shanghai, China. He also worked on a maximum security barrack for the San Diego Naval Base as well as on the Ohio Turnpike. Some of the other projects while working over 40 years for the city of New York, included designing ramps, bridges and roadways which connected the five boroughs of New York City. He designed the base structure of the World Trade Center, worked on portions of the New Jersey Turnpike and helped convert the Queens Expressway from a railroad into a roadway. He had a major part in the planning and construction of the East Side and West Side highway systems and the Battery Park underpass. He also built approach ramps to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. During World War II, he worked on the Point of Embarkation at the Port of New York where members of the armed services left for Europe and Africa. Henry relished talking about a large scale cargo plane which he helped design in the 1920s. The fuselage was his contribution. This work led to the development of the P-38 fighter plane in the 1940s. His contributions to society were many. Whenever he was asked what his favorite project was, he always replied, "Whatever I was working on at the time." Survivors include sons and daughters-in-law, Jack and Lenore of Bettendorf, Allan and Beverlee of Parsippany, New Jersey, and Robert and Elyse of Great Falls, Virginia, eight grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren. Henry was preceded in death by his wife, Lillian, of 52 years, two brothers and two sisters. He will be interred at his wife’s side in Beth David Cemetery in Elmont Long Island, New York, on Wednesday, October 2, 2002.