The age-herald., 1900-03-29
---------------------- UNDER NEW YORK BY TRAIN.
Troubles of Making the New Rapid Transit
 Tunnel

From the April Pearson's.
 Those who imagine that busy street like Fourth avenue or Forty second street cannot be tunneled under without disturb ing the street car lines and heavy traffic overhead should remember that 1t has been done before, and that right in the heart of the metropolis-under Broadway. For in- stance, in 1868, MT. Alfred E. Beach. the in- ventor of the hydraulic shield to be used in the present tunnel, constructed a tunnel extending under Broadway from Warren street to Park place large enough to re- ceive a small street railway car. This tun- mel was between 300 and 400 feet long, and was built to show that underground transit was feasible. At that early period the need of rapid transit for passengers was strongly felt, but there was great opposition on the part of property owners along the line Of the proposed railway through fear that tho buildings would be injured if q tunnel were carried on a lower level than the founda- tion. Also, everyone objected to the serious loss of business which would result from the closing and tearing up of the streets MT. Beach, however, built his tunnel by the method described, and now invariably fol- lowed. and few persons except those direct ly interested had any knowledge that tunnel was in progress until after it WAS completed. This tunnel was feet inches in exterior diameter, and it's floor was 211a feet below the pavement. It ran under sewers and Crciton water mains without disturbing either and was built during hours when the street was thronSed with omnibuses and heavy-teams. It was duly opened to the public, and many thousands of people enjoyed the privilege of riding in the car, which was worked back and forth by the pneumatic or air-pressure system Long ago. however, the tunnel was neglect ed, then forgotten, and now the fact that it is there in working order today will strike the average New Yorker as remarkable.
 Of course, the building of so vast work as the new tunnel cannot be accomplished without many petty irritations. In many places sewers will have to be taken up and relaid, but not 15 miles of ,them, has been loudly proclaimed. The chief engineer states that very few pipes and wires will be encountered, as the tunnel runs too deep. Still, the case of Philadelphia may be re- peated There, after beginning the im- mense railway subway and tunnel, it was found that Philadelphia had considerably larger number of mains for water and gas, conduits for electricity and sewers than were known to exist at the different bur eaus. They were all in active operation, and on many occasions offered serious men, ace and several times damage, to the build ing of the new sewers. Stal, the contractor is supposed ito figure such chances in his $35 00O, 900 bid.
 He has the experience of others to go by. He will hardly be caught by people who claim that their house walls have been dam- aged, for trickery of this sort is notorious and the remedy known. In London many householders having learned. when ii was all over that tunnel had been constructed under their ground, discovered cracks in their buildings and hoped for compensation. MT. Greathead, the contractor. made him. self the model of all contractors by produc- ing for these compliments photographs of their buildings before the tunnel had been begun, with cracks very much in evidence He had, indeed, possessed himself of pho- tographs of every wall and building in the least likely to be within ,the limits of tho tunneling effects. MT. Mcdonald will un- occasionally do az much in New York.