Popular Science Montlily 



333 



while to the air, it can be crumpled in 

 the hand like earth. 



^^'hen New York built its first sub- 

 way, the engineers encountered some of 

 this "rotten rock" in Park Avenue near 

 the Grand Central Station. Serious 

 slides resulted ; houses caved in. And 

 the builders of the new subways have 

 not come off anv more fortunatelv than 



Rebuilding and moving sewers to vacate space required 

 for the new subways. The sewers alone mean an ex- 

 penditure of from six to seven million dollars. The 

 illustration shows a large tube making a new outlet 

 for the sewer system emptying into the Hudson River. 

 This outlet will cost the city half a million dollars. 

 To the left of the picture is the magnificent new 

 Pennsylvania Terminal 



their predecessors. Of several cave-ins 

 the most serious recently was one in 

 Seventh Avenue, near Twenty-fourth 

 Street, where seven persons were killed 

 and eighty-five were injured. 



Try to conceive, then, how cautiously 

 the engineers must work in building the 

 Lexington Avenue double-decker sub- 

 way and in tunneling the treacherous 

 rock in the vicinity of Grand 

 Central Station where ( as 

 an accompanying illustration 

 tells better than whole pages 

 of description could doj the 

 ground is being honey- 

 combed into five levels — 

 this in the same perilous 

 ground where the engineers 

 first learned how gingerly 

 they must proceed in a local- 

 ity where the "rotten rock'' 

 literally abounds. And to- 

 day an extra factor of difti- 

 culty must be confronted 

 here from the fact that the 

 operation of the present 

 subway cannot be interfered 

 with while the new tubes 

 are being constructed. 



Following a blast, a slide 

 of "rotten rock" knocked 

 out the shoring of the wood- 

 en bridge which forms the 

 temporary street, and en- 

 gulfed a loaded street car, a 

 large motor truck, and 

 scores of pedestrians. Spec- 

 tators said that the structure 

 fell like a house of card.-. 

 The maze of gas pipes and 

 electrical conduits added a 

 grave danger, for a spark 

 from the tangled wires 

 would have exploded the 

 leaking gas, and would have 

 added many more names to 

 the list of killed and injured. 

 On Saturday, of the same 

 week, a section of Broadway 

 fell in, endangering many 

 lives. Fortunately, there 

 were few pedestrians in that 

 section of the street and only 

 one vehicle, a taxicab. so 

 that the casualties were few. 

 lUit New York's confidence 

 was sadly shaken. 



