Fallen Trees Signal Start of Shaft Work

 by Carl Glassman

The first sign that something big was happening across the street was the felling of trees, nine large honey locusts and London Plains. Then it was the sight of men feeding the remains into wood-chippers.

Residents living on Hudson and Laight Streets across from the Holland Tunnel traffic rotary were outraged and bewildered by what they saw.

"I was tempted to run out and say, 'What's going on?'" said Toni Schowalter, of 155 Hudson St., who watched workers quickly chop down four or five "glorious" trees outside her window on Hudson Street. What seemed especially odd, Schowalter said, was that improvements to the rotary, including park-like spaces with benches, walkways and new lighting, had just been completed.

Trees are downed at Hudson and Laight. Photo: Richard Rudich

"Everything has been so slow," she said. "Then here they come and in literally an hour or two they pull up the trees."


"Now the trees are all gone," added Schowalter's husband, Pierre Delerive. "The area is covered with gravel and nothing shields us from the view of the traffic out of the tunnel."

For years to come, nearby residents will be seeing more than just traffic outside their windows. Work has just begun on what the city calls simply "27B." In a narrow fenced-off area between Hudson Street and exit lanes of the tunnel rotary, machines will dig one of many shafts that will connect to the second of two sections of the city's Water Tunnel No. 3, now being burrowed into deep bedrock and inching its way downtown. When the 1.5 billion gallons of water a day finally begins flowing through the tunnel, in about 2011 or 2012, it will rise up the shaft to a distribution chamber, just below the ground's surface and into water mains serving Lower Manhattan.

The shaft, 35 feet in diameter, will penetrate 540 feet into the ground, all but 75 feet of which will be through bedrock. The workers will spend nine months drilling a

14-inch wide shaft all the way down. Then they will drill upward, widening the hole to 12 feet, with the debris carried away underground.

Widening the shaft to its full 35-foot diameter will require many months of blasting with dynamite. Boring machinery alone can not do the job, said Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the city's Department of Environmental Protection, the agency in charge of the project. He added that no more than "mild rumbles" will be felt above ground. "I've never heard of any incident or damage," he said.

Site of shaft, off Hudson Street. The hole was dug to look for utilities. Photo: Carl Glassman
Water Tunnel No. 3, now being constructed deep underground, will connect to city water mains through shafts like the one that is beginning to be dug off Hudson Street in Tribeca. Photo: Allan Tannebaum

Once the hole is dug, it will take three more years for the installation of valves, chambers and "a ton of equipment," Michaels said. A crane will be on site to lower men and machinery into the shaft.

As for the trees, Michaels said that they will be replaced when the project is complete. "We're making sure that trees are put back at the end of the day," said Community Board 1 district manager Paul Goldstein, who fielded calls from angry residents who watched the trees being destroyed.

Erica Rooney, who lives at Beach and Hudson Streets, was one of those irate callers. A self-described "tree person," Rooney said she was relieved to learn that the tree removal was not "gratuitous destruction." She said she now closes the blinds of her windows overlooking where the trees had stood.

"I love trees and now I look out there and all I see are cars and the ghost of the trees that were there," she said. "It's just very, very bare."