By Philip Newman
Sandhogs working on the East Side Access project have finished major blasting deep under Grand Central Terminal, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Tuesday.
Since March 7, 2007, nearly 1,000 workers on the job 24 hours a day and five days a week have carried out more than 2,400 controlled blasts — all without affecting the operations of Metro-North Railroad or the subway system.
The workers are building two enormous caverns, 160 feet below street level, that will house eight tracks for the Long Island Rail Road.
The East Side Access is scheduled to be finished by 2019 and will bring the LIRR into Grand Central Terminal, saving time for thousands of commuters who now must transfer from Penn Station en route to Manhattan’s East Side.
The MTA said some 857,000 cubic yards of rocky mud — enough to cover the 843 acres of Central Park to a depth of a foot — were dug out and hauled away.
“This is a very significant milestone for the East Side Access project,” said Michael Horodniceanu, president of MTA Capital Construction. “The caverns are essentially now fully excavated. Much work remains to be done to build the platforms and tracks and finish what is currently raw, cave-like space. But we now have a fully built shell in which all future work will take place.”
Two enormous, 200-ton boring machines also chewed out more than 32,000 linear feet of Manhattan bedrock between September 2007 through June 2011 from 63rd Street to 37th streets.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at timesledgernews@cnglocal.com or phone at 718-260-4536.
