For what seems like an eternity we have been waiting for the fabled Second Avenue Subway to open and let us ride its teal-colored T line. Just in the past year we've visited the construction site, worried about how it might be hurting local dogs (and people) and been charmed by a Sinatra-singing worker. Through it all, the work has continued. So, how's it going? Really well, let's take a look and see!
The MTA just uploaded a massive gallery of Patrick Cashin photos documenting the work being done on the line, especially on the stations between 73rd and 63rd streets. And it looks good. Raw rock cavern station ceilings being filled in! Stations looking like, well, stations! This is really going to happen people!
As for more specific updates? Here's some of what the MTA tells us the status of things are as of January 1st. At the 86th Street cavern, the job is 42 percent complete, with 88,438 bank cubic yards excavated to date. What does that mean? That means the North and South shaft caverns are now so well dug out they actually met up on January 11th. Work has now moved on to things like excavating the station entrances and elevator shafts there. Not bad.
And things are even better further down at 72nd Street, where the contractor is almost entirely done (96.3 percent) with excavation. They've dug out 177,873 bank cubic yards of earth! The main cavern is done and now the only remaining excavation to be done is for the two ancillary areas (so yeah, blasting will continue through February). But with all that nearly complete, the fun stuff is getting going—like waterproofing and installing drainage in the caverns and tunnels between 73rd and 63rd Streets. Roughly 32 percent of the final concrete lining has been placed to date!
