The Press: The Bridge Expert

Around the city room of the New York Daily Mirror, Photographer Bob Wendlinger is known as "The Bridge Expert." Two years ago he chased a police call to Manhattan's George Washington Bridge, arrived in time to get a memorable, prize-winning picture of a young Negro twisting from the outstretched hands of a priest and plunging to his death 250 ft. below (TIME, March 10, 1952). Last week, cruising in the Mirror's radio car, Wendlinger got word of another suicide attempt. A despondent taxi driver called the paper's news desk and said that he was getting ready to jump off the Manhattan Bridge.

Photographer Wendlinger raced to the scene, arrived at the same time as the police. While other photographers stood by, Wendlinger hollered out, "I'm the guy you talked to on the phone." When he heard that, says Photographer Wendlinger, "it seemed to be a kind of bond with somebody and he yelled down to have that guy sent up to talk to him." Wendlinger climbed up onto the 225-ft.-high bridge cable where the would-be suicide perched precariously.

For 15 minutes he talked to the man, finally convinced him not to jump. Then Wendlinger turned his camera over to a cop, extended a helping hand to the man and guided him to other waiting cops, who brought him down. Bridge Expert Wendlinger made only one mistake; he was so busy talking that he took no pictures. But another Mirror photographer took a frontpage picture for his paper (see cut). The photographer: John Hearst Jr., 20, grandson of Founder William Randolph Hearst, and son and namesake of the Hearst-papers' assistant general manager.