As the East Side Access project inches toward completion, one of the tunnel boring machines digging out the tubes in Manhattan has spun its last cutter head, and it won’t be coming up for air. The Spanish contract that owns Seli, the TBM that has been cutting through Manhattan schist since 2007, has decided to abandon the TBM 14 stories beneath Park Avenue. It would, simply put, cost more than the TBM is worth to pull it back out into Sunnyside, dismantle it and sell it for scrap, and so the nether reaches of Manhattan will be its final resting place.
Its exact resting place appears to be at around Park Ave. between 37th and 38th Streets, and the MTA and its contractors will use the laid-to-rest TBM for tunnel support. Later this week, it will be encased in concrete, and the 22.5-foot-long drill will be marked with a plaque only. As The Times notes, the decision evokes images of Planet of the Apes, and while other countries have buried TBMs, this is a first for New York. There is, of course, no room to do the same along Second Ave. or the 7 Line extension. “People will find it, and they will find it exciting to see it, if they ever unearth it,” Michael Horodniceanu, head of MTA Capital Construction, said. “Who knows? Maybe they will want to continue the railroad south, at which point they would have to take it out.”
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