The Giant Task of the Subway 

 Diggers in New York 



By Charles Phelps Gushing 



IS there anywhere in New York to- 

 night a cross section of street-life 

 more dramatic in contrasts than the 

 bit of Broadway in front of the Metro- 

 poHtan Opera House? The (ireat White 

 Way is gay, thronged, and gHttering. 

 The opera is just over; crowds in even- 

 ing clothes, silk-hatted and the bejew- 

 cled, are pouring out to their waiting 

 limousines. There, as in past years, the 

 pageant of wealth parades — but this sea- 

 son with a difference. The sidewalk and 

 the pavement of Broadway are now 

 rough planks, and from below this rum- 

 bling floor the shrill tattoo of a drill re- 

 sounds upon rock. Picture this cross 

 section : 



Above that plank floor, the silks and 

 jewels and glittering lights; below it, in 

 half-darkness, a squad of laborers in 

 greasy overalls, stained with sweat and 

 mud, risking their lives to build another 

 subwav. 



New York rarely gives a thought to 

 its thousands of sappers and miners. 



"Building another subway,'' it says. 

 "Wish they'd hurry and get it over. 

 They've torn up half the town." 



So a khaki army in the subway trenches 

 hurries, by day and by night, risking life 

 and limb like soldiers. The peril of the 

 job is a story in itself, not to be told in 

 a paragraph. Suffice it, for the present, 

 to say that only a few yards farther 

 down the same street one person was 

 killed and three persons were wounded a 

 short time ago when a layer of "rotten 

 stone" slipped into the subway ditch and 

 half a block of the floor of Broadway 

 follow'ed it. 



Transj^orting Three Billion People 

 in a Year 



The average resident of New York has 

 very little comprehension of the vastness 

 of these great engineering operations. 

 Is the human mind able to picture 



The simplest method of building a subway, known as the "cut and cover" method. If the entire 

 length could be built with open construction, the engineers would have a comparatively sim- 

 ple task. The twisted vertical steel rods are the reenforcing members for the concrete walk 



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