BUILDING A BOULEVARD.
BY J. PARMLY PARET.
A few years ago the people of New York decided that they must have a new boulevard, where fast horses could be driven without running over people or upsetting the carriages of those who didn't want to drive so fast. They puzzled their heads for some time to find a suitable spot for their new driveway, and it was many months before they finally agreed upon the bank of the Harlem River which runs along the east side of the city. The shore here is straight for several miles, and is lined with such steep, wooded bluffs that all the bridges cross the river high up in the air. Here there is no danger of interruption, and as the roadway can be both straight and level, it was chosen as an ideal spot, and the Harlem River Speedway is now being built there.
The building of this great boulevard has already been going on for two years, and it will probably take fully two more to complete it. The steep banks sloped down to the very edge of the river, so it was necessary to build the road out in the water for most of its length, and the workmen had to make land to build it on. In one or two places great masses of rocks were in the way, and here they cut the driveway right through the solid rock. At one point there was a big gap in the cliffs, and the road was built up on top of a high stone wall for over a quarter of a mile, while in another place they had to blast out thousands of tons of rocks from under the water to make room for the new drive.
LEVEL STRETCH OF THE SPEEDWAY, SHOWING CRIBS, DREDGES, AND PORTIONS OF THE RIVER THAT MUST BE FILLED IN.
Long before they could begin the actual work of building such a big road as this the civil engineers spent many months preparing their "plans and specifications." They estimate so many hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of mud to be dredged out of the river bed; so many thousands of feet of crib-work to be built; so many hundreds of yards of stone wall to be built; so many cubic yards of filling and grading, and so many—well, so many other things to be done that it took a big printed pamphlet to mention them all. Then the contractors who wanted to build the driveway made their offers to do the work, and the contract was given to the lowest bidder. This is the way with all public improvements.
Three months after the boulevard was started the river front for two miles fairly swarmed with workmen. At times there were nearly two thousand men at work there, and from the top of the big stone bridge, under whose high arches the road was to pass, a busy scene was presented. Far down below the hordes of men looked like little black ants crawling about at their work. All day long the little steam-drills that bored holes to blast away the rocks puffed out their little clouds of white smoke; the big pile-drivers thumped on regularly upon the tops of great piles as they sunk deeper and deeper into the soft mud, and clumsy steam-derricks and mud-dredges groaned under their work, while the scores of little carts, with their tiny horses and tiny workmen looked like swarms of bugs and ants quarreling together. The boats were covered with workmen, the shore was black with workmen, the rocky heights were sprinkled with workmen—everywhere it was alive with them. High Bridge was often lined with people looking down at the busy scene below.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the work was making the new land to build the roadway on. If they had simply dumped earth into the river, it would soon have washed away with the tides, so they had to begin from the outside and build in toward the shore.
CRIB IN FOREGROUND, PILES IN SHOAL WATER, AND WALL OF MASONRY IN BACKGROUND.
First, a swarm of bristling, beetlelike mud-dredges anchored along in line just off the shore, and for many weeks their big scoops chunked up and down in the shallow water, each time bringing up with them great masses of black slimy mud. Scows were loaded down to the water's edge by the dredges, and sent off to dump the mud somewhere else where filling was wanted. When they came back, too, they generally towed behind them rafts of loose logs. For months these logs were coming up the river almost every day, and were anchored off the scene of the work. Hundreds of thousands of loose logs were towed up for this work at different times, and just before the crib-work was begun that part of the river looked like a logging camp.
When the dredges had dug a long deep trench in the mud where the outer edge of the roadway was to be, the work of sinking the cribs began. These cribs are made of logs laid crosswise, like old-fashioned log cabins, and fastened together. They were built at a ship-yard, in sections several hundred feet long, and towed up the river to be sunk in the trench. No sooner had they been fastened in place, by a row of piles, than the hordes of workmen began to swarm all over them. The loose logs were hauled up out of the water and laid on the cribs crosswise, and fastened in place with great spikes.
But though the workmen kept on building up the cribs, they did not seem to grow any higher. As fast as the new logs were added the weight carried them down deeper into the water. Finally they were sunk into the mud at the bottom of the trenches by filling them with tons upon tons of broken rocks, and when they were firmly imbedded they were built up to the proper height with more logs.
In some places these cribs are higher than an ordinary city house, and considerably wider at the bottom. Imagine a log cabin bigger than a house, and you have a good idea of what these cribs would look like if entirely out of water. When finally settled in place the outside edges were trimmed with smooth-cut timbers, and the work of filling in began. A little railroad was built along the tops of the sunken cribs and up the side of the hill, where a lot of blasting and digging was going on. Dummy-cars pulled by mules were loaded with rocks and earth, and dumped into the great gap between the cribs and the shore. Many thousands of tons of dirt and rocks were thrown in here before the big opening was filled up.
WHERE THE CRIBS HAVE SLID OUT OF PLACE.
But the engineers had made a serious mistake in planning this part of the boulevard, and the weight of the filling behind them pushed some of the cribs out into the water. Far down under the soft muddy bottom there is hard rock, and this shelves out rapidly toward the middle of the river; so when the great weight was filled in behind the sunken cribs, the mud, cribs and all, slid out in places away from the shore. Some parts have moved as much as eight feet at the top, and apparently much more at the bottom, and before the great speedway can be finished, this work will have to be repaired, and the outer edge moved back out of the channel of the river.
Just below the bridge a great rocky promontory jutted out into the way like a cape, and nearly a hundred thousand cubic yards of rock were blasted away to make room for the boulevard. When the workmen got down to the level of the water, submarine drills had to be used for the blasting. This work, too, was very interesting. Divers in rubber suits with glass eyes were sent down under the water to fix the drills in position, and then the holes were bored from the floats above. When they had been sunk deep enough, the divers went down again and fixed the charges of powder that blasted out the rocks. It was like a small earthquake and water-spout combined when one of these blasts went off.
Down at the lower end of the road the approach winds down the side of the rocky heights. Here it is supported for nearly half a mile on a great stone wall, which gradually grows smaller and smaller as the approach nears the level of the river. At one point another great mass of rock got in the way of the workmen, and they blasted their way right through its centre. The carriages will disappear in this cut as though they had been swallowed up by the rocks, and come out again on the other side as they wind their way down toward the straight part of the road along the river-bank. Over forty thousand cubic yards of rock were cut out of this place alone, and the workmen used all this and much more to fill in the cribs when they sunk them in the river below.
The big wall that supports the approach was another difficult part of the work. In one place this is over forty feet high, and more than half as thick at the bottom. Just think of a solid stone wall as high as a house and more than half as thick at its base! It narrows down to two or three feet in thickness at its top, like a pyramid of masonry, and above this will be a railing to prevent people from falling off, for there is to be a sidewalk along the outer edge of the driveway here. It took many, many months to build that wall alone.
There will be two sidewalks in most parts of the new boulevard, but people will be allowed to cross from one to the other only at certain points, and then under the roadway. It would be dangerous to cross where fast horses are constantly passing, so there will be two or three tunnels, or transverse culverts, as the engineers call them, at different parts of the driveway. These tunnels will pass under the road-bed, connecting both sidewalks with stone steps at either side. Sewer culverts, too, have been built at a number of points along the driveway, for the amount of rain that drains off the slopes at the side of the boulevard after a storm would almost undermine it if there were not proper outlets for the water.
THE COFFER-DAM AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LEVEL STRETCH.
Another engineering difficulty was found when the workmen reached the lower end of the approach, for the rocky bluffs end suddenly there before the approach has reached the level of the crib-work. Here they had to dig down forty feet in the mud to get a hard bottom for the rest of the support. A wooden wall was built around the spot to keep the water out, and inside of this "coffer-dam," as the engineers call it, the masons laid the foundations for the last end of the stone wall. It was almost impossible to keep the wooden sides from leaking too, and they had to keep pumps at work almost all the time to prevent the inside from filling with water.
The work was stopped for the winter, but as soon as the mild weather comes again the river front will once more swarm with an army of workmen, and the busy little ants will tear down a lot of the work that has been done and do it all over again. The mistake of the engineers will make the new boulevard cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more than it was expected, and New York will have to pay over two million dollars for her new speedway before it is finished.
[MOLLY PITCHER.]
In all our school histories—that is, histories of the United States—honorable mention is made of Molly Pitcher, who did good service as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. None of these text-books gives us any clew to Molly's origin, but nearly all of them tell us that the brave woman lies in an unmarked grave, after having passed away without the recognition of her ungrateful country. Sometimes she is buried on the banks of the Hudson, but as a general thing the historians leave us to infer that the location of her grave is entirely unknown. This is all wrong, and I hope that the compiler of the next school history of our country will read what is here told of the heroine, and after verifying the facts, give in his book such attention to the true story of her life as her services entitle her to.
Mary Ludwig was the daughter of Pennsylvania Dutch parents, industrious people with a large family to support. In 1768, when about twenty years old, Mary "hired out" as maid of all work in the family of William Irvine of Carlisle, and on July 24th of the following year became the wife of John Casper Hayes, the town barber. Seven years later, when the war broke out, Hayes enlisted as a private in the First Pennsylvania Artillery, but was afterward transferred to the Seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, commanded by Colonel William Irvine, his wife's former employer. When the artillery regiment was ordered to go to the front Molly marched with it, having obtained the authority of the Colonel (Thomas Proctor) to serve in her husband's battery as cook and laundress. At the battle of Monmouth (Freehold), New Jersey, Hayes was wounded while serving his gun; but his place was soon filled by his wife, who rushed to the front when she heard of his fall, picked up the rammer he had dropped, and till the battle ended did as good service in loading the piece as could have been done by the best-drilled man in the battery. When the fight was over, Molly busied herself in carrying water for the wounded, and it was from this service she came by the pet name "Molly Pitcher."
Molly's husband did not die on the field, but when he recovered from his wound he entered the infantry regiment mentioned above, and remained with it till peace was declared. A few months after reaching Carlisle, Molly was left a widow, but a year later she married John McCauley, who seems to have led her an unhappy life. On Washington's birthday, 1822, when Molly was nearly seventy-five years old, the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted her a gift of forty dollars and pension of forty dollars a year for her noteworthy services during the Revolutionary war.
Molly lived to be nearly ninety. She died on the 22d of January, 1833, and was buried as a soldier, "with the honors of war," in the old Carlisle cemetery. More than forty years afterward—that is, on the Fourth of July, 1876—the citizens of Carlisle erected a handsome monument, over the heroine's grave. It bears this inscription: