Why doesn't Manhattan just cave in? Okay, it's composed of schist rock, one of the strongest type of stone anywhere. And it's in Manhattan in abundance. But to build things, above and below ground, the engineers have drilled the shit out of this rock and piled buildings on top of it.
And nothing small, mind you. Humongous buildings, and connected them to other buildings with tunnels. I once met @justjenking from Australia with her husband as they were on the Amtrak level at Penn waiting for a train to D.C. so that newsperson Jen could flash her press credentials and get a White House tour, completing a U.S. tour.
We only chatted for a bit, but I told her husband Steve that Madison Square Garden was above us. He looked up, perhaps a little apprehensively, and then I told him that at 7:30 that evening the Rangers were hosting the Maple Leafs and there would be nearly 20,000 people in attendance watching an NHL hockey game over his head if he waited long enough. How is this possible? He took another glance upward. Rock, concrete and steel, the engineers will you. But how hollow can you make the place?
Fifty-two tracks, upper and lower levels, radiate north from Grand Central Terminal. What's on top of them? Park Avenue and buildings. Big buildings.
The LIRR East Side Access, when completed (2022 now) will deposit LIRR commuters 10 storeys underneath Grand Central Terminal. If the elevators and escalators decide to go kaput one day (and they will decide to go kaput) the commuters will need oxygen to get to the surface. Sherpa guides will need to be dispatched from EMS.
I always think of the scene toward the end of 'Paint Your Wagon' when the Western town above the mining tunnels start to sink as the shafts weaken. Gold dust spilled in the many saloons above starts to seep down in the mine shafts. Furious digging for the gold weakens the shafts, and eventually the entire town disappears into a sinkhole. What an ending. Is this how the Big Apple ends?
There are some cave-ins in Manhattan, usually a burst water main that weakens the roadway and sidewalk above, creating a sinkhole, sometimes of Biblical proportions. Just the other day a water main burst on the West Side, 61st Street-65th Street, between Columbus Avenue and Broadway, the Lincoln Center area, flooding subways and underground parking garages, leaving at least 60 high end cars ruined.
The NYT has been reporting on this for two days. Two of the bylines were by Corey Kilgannon (@CoreyKilgannon), to whom I Tweeted the query I posed above: what holds this place up?
Mr. Gilgannon replied with a link to an even bigger water main break in 1998 that basically turned East 19th Street-East 21st Street on Fifth Avenue into Lake Erie. I remember that one. At the time, in the words of the city's Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner, Joel A. Miele, "this one's a beaut." It's always more fun when disaster records are broken.
Massive water main breaks in NYC are not a common occurrence, but do occur because the mains are over 100 years old and do not get replaced unless they break. If they ain't broke, leave them alone. They're too fragile, and require a massive outlay of expense, labor and disruption if they were to be replaced proactively.
When I lived in Flushing I once noticed that ice was persistently forming at a spot on the sidewalk, despite there having been no rain or snow. The ice was forming around the cutoff valve embedded in the sidewalk in front of the house. No water was coming into the cellar, but it was clear we had a service line leak.
And who is the repair expense on? The homeowner. The service line from the house to the street is part of the homeowner's responsibility. Usually, nothing ever happens, and people come and go without ever having to replace the service line. We were not that lucky.
I think it was $3,000 sometime in the '80s, when a large crew in many vehicles came from a private firm, Division Water, that specialized in that kind of work. They had all the maps of what was underneath. They descended on our address. Holes were made, pipe was removed, and pipe was replaced, all rather quickly. I was sorry to see the black cap shutoff valve, secured with a brass screw, go. I always remember that cap from when I was a little kid.
The house was built in 1923, and my folks bought it in 1946. Talking to the guys I asked what kind of pipe needed to be replaced? Brass? No. Lead.
In other words, our house, and I'm sure countless other homes in the area, were serviced with lead water pipes? Yep. Who knew?
The Periodic Table symbol for lead is Pb, which I suspect is the origin of the word plumbing. Historically, plumbers used lead pipes.
I never knew of any health concerns that were voiced about our lead water pipes. No one ever seemed to be in need of treatment for lead poisoning. NYC water is always considered the gold standard of clean water, I guess if even delivered in lead pipes.
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