
New York Underground - sehrope
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/nymain.html
======
msutherl
So, there are two of those deep underground water tunnels, one which runs down
from the Bronx through Manhattan and another that runs from the Bronx through
Queens and Brooklyn. These tunnels were completed in 1917 and 1935
respectively. How they managed to do this then is beyond me.

Currently a third tunnel is being built and apparently it's "the largest
construction project in New York history". The project was begun in 1970 and
won't finish until 2020. It cost 6 billion. When the third tunnel comes
online, it will allow for the other two tunnels to be shut down for repairs
for the first time in their history. Scenes from _Die Hard_ were filmed in
Tunnel 3.

This is big, long-term stuff folks. Makes me feel kind of proud of
civilization.

~~~
hkmurakami
To me, $6 billion seems really cheap for a project that seems pretty vital to
the city's long term health, safety and security.

Compare this to the ~$10 billion for the California High Speed Rail project,
which doesn't seem nearly as important as this NYC project.

~~~
rwhitman
Having lived the last 2 years in NYC and the previous 7 in CA I can say that
high speed rail is the more valuable project. The water here is fine, and no
one is suffering because there isn't a 3rd tunnel. But the transportation
situation in California is archaic and frustrating.

Have you ever been trapped in traffic on the grapevine for 4 hours trying to
get to/from LA? Or shelled out $300 for an hour flight to SFO? Its maddening.

I drink water out of the tap here in NYC and it tastes great.

California rail is a crisis, the water supply to NYC is not.

~~~
angersock
Perhaps, but consider what happens if something does go wrong with the water
supply--this is not something that can be patched overnight.

A rail system is well and good, but you can at least take a car or bus if you
need to. If your water infrastructure stops working, there aren't many other
games in town.

------
cs702
The greatest depth shown in that graphic is 800 feet. At 10-12 feet per floor,
that's equal to the height of a 67-80 story skyscraper. This means Manhattan
has a 'mirror-image' city under the ground -- its 'citizens' are electric
power, water, gas, and trash.

I can't help but be in awe.

~~~
maratd
What is even more amazing is that this mimics nature. Most trees have a root
structure that is a rough mirror image of what's above ground!

~~~
maxerickson
The roots are generally much closer to the surface than the canopy is to the
ground.

Like within a meter versus dozens of meters.

~~~
greyboy
Having lived in a very hurricane-prone area of the southeastern US for most of
my life, I can verify that tree roots are not a mirror of the above-ground
portion.

~~~
mitjak
Any pictures?

~~~
greyboy
Not personal photos, but here are some examples:

[http://www.cclockwood.com/stockimages/WE-HURRICANE-
GUSTAV-46...](http://www.cclockwood.com/stockimages/WE-HURRICANE-
GUSTAV-4635.jpg)

<http://www.doc.state.nc.us/news/scrapbk/David-1.jpg>

<http://www.city-data.com/disaster-photos/photos/220.jpg>

[http://www.cclockwood.com/stockimages/WE-HURRICANE-
GUSTAV-46...](http://www.cclockwood.com/stockimages/WE-HURRICANE-
GUSTAV-4620.jpg)

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m6YoyhPEom8/Tlpzy9dkJII/AAAAAAAABY...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m6YoyhPEom8/Tlpzy9dkJII/AAAAAAAABYY/TyTEq0X4H7Y/s1600/Irene%2Bdowned%2Btree.JPG)

<http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/05/20/46/1378705/5/628x471.jpg>

Google something like:
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hurricane+trees+do...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hurricane+trees+down+root&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch)

Edit: Horrible formatting job, and to say that Pine trees were the worst
offenders in our area.

~~~
wtvanhest
I grew up in south florida and have witnessed a bunch of root walls, but It
really depends on the tree.

Palm trees for examples have deep root structures and small canopies which is
how they survive the strong tropical winds.

~~~
greyboy
Correct, there are certain exceptions.

I believe the point of this rabbit trail was to correct that notion that root
formations are mirrors (or otherwise similar) of the tree trunks/canopies. At
least, that's what I was hoping to show.

~~~
wtvanhest
Yeah, absolutely. Just providing some additional info.

------
Tashtego
If you like this, you'll love Kate Ascher's The Works: Anatomy of a City
([http://www.amazon.com/The-Works-Anatomy-Kate-
Ascher/dp/01431...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Works-Anatomy-Kate-
Ascher/dp/0143112708/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344621713&sr=8-1&keywords=the+works)).
It's slightly out of date (but much more up to date than the OP!).

And if you like that, you'll REALLY love Brian Hayes' Infrastructure: A Field
Guide to the Industrial Landscape ([http://www.amazon.com/Infrastructure-
Field-Guide-Industrial-...](http://www.amazon.com/Infrastructure-Field-Guide-
Industrial-
Landscape/dp/0393329593/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344621793&sr=1-1&keywords=infrastructure)).
It's porn for people who like to try to figure out what the random towers in a
chemical plant do, or how the electrical station you just passed on the
interstate works.

~~~
_delirium
> try to figure out what the random towers in a chemical plant do

Tangential, but that phrasing reminds me of this article:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3390719>

------
d0ugal
The to scale version is better:
[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/scale.h...](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/scale.html)

~~~
potatolicious
Woah. The water mains are 800 feet down? How does that work? How did they even
get there?

~~~
thematt
I'm guessing they probably got there before everything on top was built, but
how do they get down there _now_ for repairs and such?

~~~
kibwen
From Wikipedia:

"[New York City Water Tunnel No. 3] was authorized in 1954. A third tunnel was
needed so tunnel one and tunnel two could be closed for repairs. Stage One was
begun in 1970 and completed in 1993 and put into service in 1998."[1]

This seems to imply that the later stages of the old two tunnels have never
seen repairs.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No._3)

------
evgen
Nice image, but if you want to really have fun with a kid dig up the book
"Underground" by David Macaulay. It peels back the layers beneath our feet and
was a real eye-opener for me when I was younger. Actually grab anything by the
same author and have fun...

------
DanBC
Tunnelling under cities has a number of odd problems.

([http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1527202/How-top-secret-
tunne...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1527202/How-top-secret-tunnellers-
of-MI5-infiltrated-the-man-from-the-Pru.html))

I read an article, some years ago, about the problems of getting subterranean
tunnels at a depth greater than 100 foot approved. As part of the process the
plans get submitted to the security services, who then say "yes" or "no"; and
you only get three attempts. I can't find the article (or anything similar) so
maybe it's just myth.

The Moscow subways are beautiful, but when I went (April '86) you were not
allowed to take any photographs.

I'm fascinated by the complex networks of public tunnels, secret tunnels, and
abandoned tunnels.

~~~
nine_k
Now taking photographs in Moscow subway ('metro') is allowed, and groups of
tourists with cameras could be seen on most picturesque stations when I last
visited it in 2011.

Next to all the granite and marble, large bulkhead doors can be seen in many
passages there. Currently all are open and not very visible, but certainly
intended to insulate stations in a case of emergency, such as a nuclear
attack.

------
gklitt
These fascinating Web 1.0 pages prove that content is king. I miss Geocities.

------
gee_totes
I'm no civil engineer, but why are the sewage tunnels above the clean water
tunnels? If there were a leak, wouldn't the sewage seep into the clean water?
Or is the clay thick enough to provide a good barrier?

~~~
Serplat
I feel safer about it when looking at the scaled version:
[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/scale.h...](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/scale.html)

------
axefrog
This is a _very_ old article. One of the pages links to this page -
[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/myth000...](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/myth000.html)
\- which suggests using RealPlayer 3.0 and Shockwave 5.0.

~~~
_delirium
The oldest version the Wayback Machine has of it is from 1999, and at that
time it had a (c) 1997 in the header:
[http://web.archive.org/web/19990508090930/http://www.nationa...](http://web.archive.org/web/19990508090930/http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nyunderground/docs/nymain.html)

Oddly they've taken out the (c) 1997 part, maybe to make it not seem as
ancient? I suppose it's still reasonably relevant; not much of this basic
information has changed. Heck, Water Tunnel #3 is still under construction.

~~~
Hopka
There's still a copyright notice at the bottom left:

> © 1996- National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.

So is it safe to guess it's from 1996 or later?

------
ChuckMcM
Its a fascinating picture. I'd love to see one of the Bay Area, one of the
cable technicians installing yet another fiber down the road outside our
office joked that if you put big rockets at PAIX and MAE-WEST and launched,
they would lift 'silicon valley' [1] into space on a net of fiber optic
cables.

Of course no mention of "Beauty and the Beast" [2] which took place in a
pretty fanciful world under New York city.

Given the expense these days of tunneling I wonder if we've reached a peak of
complexity underground for now.

[1] Actually only the parts between San Jose and Palo Alto but it was the
imagery not the accuracy they were going for.

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast_%281987_T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast_%281987_TV_series%29)

------
lobster_johnson
Naive question, but are things like power, gas, water, TV cables and steam
always buried like this (requiring digging to make repairs or modifications),
or are there cities/systems where they are laid in human-accessible tunnels?
Seems like it would be more practical, albeit more expensive.

~~~
nosse
In Helsinki they have human accessible tunnels because the whole city is on
bedrock and there is not much soil above it. It's just way too hard to make
tunnels to rock so small that people can't go there, so they're forced to be
more accessible.

Tv, gas and power can be digged relatively shallow and I have not hear of
maintenance tunnels for them when there is no solid rock to deal with.

With sewers they usually put vertical wells to it in every corner. That makes
the whole system more accessible.

Often they put empty plastic tubes to new buildings just in case. It's not
very hard to get something crawling there when new Internet comes to house.

------
Alex3917
For those interested in this sort of stuff, there is a documentary called Dark
Days that's all about the homeless people who live in the NYC subway system.
It was available on iTunes the last time I checked.

------
yskchu
The most interesting I found was the steam pipes.

~~~
rprime
Indeed. There's is such thing where I live and I find it quite interesting.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system>

------
siculars
Here is an interesting Subway chart from 1904 with a depth chart.

<http://talk.nycsubway.org/perl/read?subtalk=589316>

------
jyturley
This was absolutely fascinating. It reminds me of Tokyo's underground sewage
system--considered the largest in the world: <http://surfwithberserk.com/the-
largest-sewage-system>

------
kine
I love how this is both informative, very cool and a complete Internet relic.
I can't remember the last time I saw a message where I had to choose whether I
had Shockwave or not to continue. Nice find!

------
evansolomon
A friend of mine made a very cool documentary called Under City that you'd
probably like if you're into this kind of stuff.

<http://vimeo.com/18280328>

------
natesm
This isn't accurate for the entire city. At Astor Place, you can look through
the sidewalk grates directly onto the tracks.

~~~
gk1
Well, of course. The subway system varies in depths from above-ground to
hundreds of feet in the ground (I think Roosevelt Island, on the F line, is
the deepest subway station).

~~~
siculars
Possibly the A train at 168th St. in Manhattan.

------
dmhdlr
BLDGBLOG is a gold-mine for these kind of things.

<http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/>

------
donohoe
For the record I first got a link to this page in 1997 or 1998.

Its a timeless page.

------
chermanowicz
this is incredible!

------
mrclownpants
This has already been posted several times.

~~~
ceejayoz
First time I've seen it.

------
ChrisArchitect
yeah, seems to be a lot of old links getting shared lately. please stop. Maybe
start using <http://isitold.com/> before posting.

~~~
superjared
Who cares if it's old? The information is still as relevant as it is
interesting.

