HOW THEY DO THINGS IN NEW YORK

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 71, 25 March 1914, Page 11

HOW THEY DO THINGS IN NEW YORK

GREAT ENGINEERING FEATS. Under date New York, 13th February, Jlr. L. T.- Reichel, of Wellington, writes to The Post:— New York is fairly prosperous, and one misses the poverty so common in the English cities. The enormous engineering works in progress absorb a great deal of , labour. ihe new subway j under construction almost rivals the Panama Canal as a feat of engineering. -'Certainly, the problems to be overcome tax the skill of the engineer to the utmost. In the skyscraper section of this city there is a bed of quicksand upon which many of the tallest buildings rest. The subway excavation threatened to bring about a collapse in Wall-street, such as that historic street had never witnessed before. The pumping had to stop and new foundations had to be fixed under the twenty story buildings adjacent. To "shore up" one building alone cost 160,000,000 dollars. The new subway is as wide as the street above, and day and night, without interruption, it pushes its way through a labyrinth of gas, water, steam-heating, electric-power, and telephone, and other conduits, without interfering with these services. The building of a skyscraper is simple compared with the building of this subway. The tunnel under the East River con-necting-with Brooklyn is being carried out under the compressed-air system. When the present subway was being constructed some years ago one of the workmen, when attempting to block up a leak with a sheaf of straw, was blown, sheaf and al), upwards through tvventy feet of river mud ,'and then through the forty feet of water above to the surface, where he was fished out none the worse by some boatmen ! This sounds like a fairy tale, but is, nevertheless, quite true. The great aqueduct nearing completion is another engineering feat of great magnitude. This tunnel is 96 miles long and about 20 feet in diameter. Tt has cost 160 millions of dollars and the lives of over I^oo men. It passes under New York City at a depth of 400 feet, and day and night pne hears mysterious explosions and tumblings far under ground.