This week, Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference 200 feet below Central Park, announcing the completion of the second stage of Water Tunnel 3 at the valve chamber's site. The project to provide a plentiful water supply for Manhattan has been in the works since 1970. Most of the $5 billion spent on the new tunnel that will carry fresh water along an 8.5 mile stretch was allocated during Bloomberg's administration. He's hoping the next mayor with continue to carry out such major infrastructure projects.
"We walked away from our future in the '70s, and what happened is, number one, you delayed projects like this," Bloomberg said. "So we've been running a risk that you didn't really want to, didn't have to run. Thank God nothing's happened so far. But also, a lot of the infrastructure we had rusted away. It went without maintenance."
Thick sheets of bedrock behind the concrete make drilling through it dangerous work. Twenty-four sand hogs died during the course of construction.
When the next phase is completed, crews will shut down and inspect what had been Manhattan's only water tunnel for the first time since it was finished in 1917.
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Photo Credit: The Verge