BY ZACH WILLIAMS | It will take some time before a Hell’s Kitchen infrastructure project is water under the bridge — but at least residents are bursting with new information about Ninth Ave. tunnel construction that’s been disrupting the flow of daily life (and traffic).
Workers have toiled for three years with the goal of joining the municipal water distribution network with a new tunnel 450 feet below the surface. The work has inconvenienced the surrounding neighborhood since then, with street closures and the conspicuous presence of equipment. The end is near, though, according to Mike Prigge of the city Department of Design and Construction.
He charted the project’s progress and outlined its future in a May 4 presentation made at Fountain House (425 W. 47th St.). The meeting was sponsored by Community Board 4 (CB4) and the West 47/48 Streets Block Association. Once work with the new tunnel concludes, the city can rehabilitate two older ones in turn, he added.
“The good news is we are somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 11 months ahead of schedule so we are hoping to wrap up spring to summer next year if everything goes the way we anticipate it,” he said.
Most of the new municipal plumbing connections are in place, with all work completed on W. 48th St. (btw. Broadway & Ninth Ave.) as well as on W. 51st St. (btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.), he said.
A new combined sewer still remains to be installed on W. 51 St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.) as well a new trunk main. Workers also need to install 48-inch piping on 10th Ave. (btw. W. 48th & W. 49th Sts.), he added. The three different efforts should take six months to complete, according to the presentation.
Roadway restoration, meanwhile, will commence on Ninth Ave. as soon as the 9th Avenue International Food Festival takes place on May 16 and 17 (see 9thave.org). Two lanes will be closed to traffic in block-by-block stages, from W. 47th to W. 52nd Sts. That work is expected to be finished by the end of the year.
Work slated for 2016 will be on 10th Ave. (btw. W. 48th & W. 49th Sts.) and on W. 51st St. (btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.), according to the presentation. Attendees at the May 4 meeting said they found it rather informative, but had questions and suggestions for planners as well.
Eileen Spinner, a resident of W. 51st St., told Prigge that project managers should seek to quickly restore community use to areas commandeered for the project once they are no longer used. She cited the example of an area on W. 48th St., which was used for storage, then left fenced-in for a period of time until it was once again used to store equipment. CB4 member Jonathan Yoni Bokser said that residents such as himself would appreciate that work on Saturdays wait until 8 a.m. rather than beginning an hour before.
CB4 Chair Christine Berthet told Chelsea Now in an interview that completion of the project will remove one of the top 10 sources of resident complaints to the community board
“It’s extremely disruptive to residents, to cars, to buses, to all traffic — and then there’s the dust and the uncertainty of when it’s going to be finished. It’s a very big, enormous project, once every hundred years,” she said.
Residents with concerns or questions about the project should contact community construction liason Nadine Harris at 646-738-4887 or via email at W48thStreetCCl@gmail.com.
