Yesterday we witnessed the rebirth of a street. Today we witness the death of a street. A four lane stretch of Erie Blvd used to run here.
You may remember that this is the job with the long reach Cat 324D L and the Komatsu PC300LC. Onondaga Creek runs directly underneath this portion of road through a collection of very old tunnels. As I was taking these photos some representatives of the NYS DEC and the engineering company overseeing this job pulled up. I overheard their conversation in only bits and pieces but words like “subsidence” and “water intrusion” were very common. Best not to think about it. The next day this nice looking Western Star was on the scene delivering concrete pipe.
In the gallery below you will find a few more shots of the Cat and Komatsu, a National Grid trucking braving the remains, and the unloading process of the pipes.
MORE VIDEO!
*Update*
In the passing months the hole has been filled and the street returned to normal traffic flow. As it turns out much of the work taking place on the street level had to do with repairs to 107 year old hand built stone walls deep below grade. Originally constructed when this portion of Erie Blvd was still the Erie Canal the walls had begun to deteriorate and needed immediate rehabilitation. Check out the great article from Syracuse.com with plenty of photos and videos. Click here.
Ive done a bunch of jobs similar to this (albeit generally in a smaller scale) over the years. The future smothers the past, and an amazing amount of things get buried. They usually hold up better than what is built on top of them. In Connecticut, CBYD just locates utilities from when people had records. You end up finding trolley car tracks, heavier railroad tracks, stone culverts, granite structures, beautiful artistic brick work, orangeburg clay pipe, you name it under a road. After 30 years of excavation here, unless it’s a 300 year old wood lot, I am always cautious never quite knowing what you’ll find. Built a golf course once on an old dairy farm, and found a Divco burial ground below.