Inside The Second Avenue Subway

I probably write about the Second Avenue Subway too much, but it IS one of the largest public works projects in our lifetime and it's happening literally under my feet on the Upper East Side. Today JMG reader David tips us to an in-depth Village Voice examination of the project.

Although the first phase of the Second Avenue subway—an extension of Q service to 96th Street—won't open to commuters before 2016, last month marked a significant step in the construction: the completion of the tunnels between the eventual 96th Street and 72nd Street stations. (Three subsequent phases, proposed to extend the Q to 125th Street and add a new line—the T—spanning 125th Street to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan, have yet to receive funding.) Where for 470 million years there had been rock, there are now two 20-foot diameter, butter-smooth concrete tubes—a giant, mile-long double-barrel shotgun buried 100 feet below the Upper East Side.

They say that section of the tunnel is completed, yet this here desk I'm writing to you from still trembles every day precisely at 5:30pm from the blasting. Lots of very cool images in the clip below.