Giant rig carves new tunnel beneath New York streets

Source: Agencies  |   2008-7-18  |     ONLINE EDITION

A HUGE, granite-eating machine that spent the past eight months chewing a mile (1.6 kilometer)-long tunnel beneath a busy Manhattan office district is getting a rest, of sorts, after completing its journey to the city's Grand Central Terminal train station.

The 200-ton, tunnel-boring rig is one of two that have been carving a pair of new rail tubes that will eventually allow commuter trains from suburban Long Island to connect with Grand Central for the first time.

The massive device, imported from Italy, went into the ground in the borough of Queens last spring, crawled beneath the East River through an existing tunnel and began chewing through Manhattan bedrock in November to reach its goal deep below Grand Central, around 42nd Street, at the end of June. Since then, it has been backing up, slowly, to a new location, where it will begin work on another task related to the project.

The tunnel it made, opened to reporters for a brief tour yesterday, is a marvel.

The tube lies roughly 140 feet (43 meters) below the surface, cut through rock solid enough to support the neighborhood's many skyscrapers.

Today, it is still a dim, muddy place. Ground water seeps in constantly, trickling down the smooth stone walls and mixing with the slop of gray muck on the tunnel floor.

Construction workers, about 200 a day on the project, arrive via a slow, noisy two-car train that trundles in from Queens.

Conditions inside are warm, wet and "a little nasty," said Sal Calvanico, a construction manager on the project.

Occasionally, the lights go out, plunging the sandhogs building the tunnel into darkness.

Tunnel digging can be dangerous work, and there are plenty of reminders underground of the hazards, from official signs bearing safety slogans, to graffiti on the walls that remind workers, in brusque terms, to watch their behinds.

"We control the rock. The rock doesn't control us," veteran sandhog Dennis O'Neill said.