THE WAR IS OVER! Today the MTA announced that the infernal blasting that has vexed Upper East Siders for the past two years has at last come to an end. The final blast ripped through the southeast corner of 72nd Street and 2nd Avenue at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. According to the MTA:
In order to create the enormous underground cavern out of the bedrock beneath 2nd Avenue, nearly 500 laborers worked 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, to excavate and remove a total of 183,000 cubic yards of rock—equivalent to the volume covered by 500 city avenue blocks 10 feet high, or more than half the Empire State Building by volume.
The $4.45 billion project to extend the Q Line along Second Avenue is the largest expansion of the subway system in generations. The subway line will have new stations at 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street, and is expected to open for service in December 2016. The future 72nd Street Station will have three new entrances including two escalator entrances at 69th Street and 72nd Street containing, 11 escalators and 5 street-level ADA accessible elevators at the southeast corner of 72nd Street and Second Avenue.
Here's video
of one of the blasts, taken back in June. In August, one of the blasts was so powerful that it sent debris showering into the air at 72nd Street and Second Avenue, doing damage to sidewalks and buildings. Luckily no one was injured, but one bystander told reporters, "I almost got cracked by like a 50 lb boulder." At a subsequent press conference, an MTA official said, "What happened was completely unacceptable and should not have occurred. I’m not jumping on or blaming anyone, but the responsibility lies with the contractor."
As an added bonus, here are photos of the 86th Street cavern excavation, which the MTA recently posted on Flickr.
