The contractor's office on 33d Street backed up against the 32d Street shaft site, and the basement was used as a storeroom for supplies for both shafts.
After the decision to do part of the work between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in open cut, an 8-in. air main was laid in 33d Street to the West Shafts, and air was supplied from the Intermediate Shaft for work on both streets in that neighborhood.
West-Shaft Plant.—West of Sixth Avenue, between 32d and 33d Streets and adjacent to the open-cut sections, the Railroad Company obtained from the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company the use of a large area from which the buildings had recently been removed, and gave the use of it to the contractor. This was of great value in prosecuting the west end of the work. The two West Shafts were located in the streets and were supplied with short timber trestles similar to those at the Intermediate Shafts. One telpher was taken from each of the Intermediate Shafts to operate at each of the West Shafts. In addition, a number of stiff-leg derricks were set up along the open-cut section, and were operated by Lidgerwood or Lambert air hoisting engines, or by electric motors, as circumstances dictated. A 15-ton Bay City locomotive crane was also used along part of the open-cut work on 32d Street.
Several concrete plants were installed at points along the open-cut section, and were moved from place to place, the same general arrangement being adopted as at the plants already described. No. 3 and No. 4 Ransome mixers were used, and were generally set up at about the level of the top of the arch. The sand and stone storage bins were made of scantlings spiked together, and were necessarily rather shallow on account of the proximity of the tunnels to the street surface.
Thirty-fifth Street Pier.—For the receipt and disposal of materials at the 35th Street pier, four stiff-leg derricks, operated by electric hoisting engines, were installed. Two were used in lifting the muck buckets from the wagons and dumping their contents on the scows for final disposal ([Fig. 4, Plate LVIII]); and the other two were fitted with clam-shell buckets for unloading sand and broken stone from barges and depositing the materials in large hoppers, from which they were drawn into wagons for transportation to the various concrete plants. A large part of the cement (all of which was supplied by the Railroad Company) was also unloaded at the 35th Street pier and hauled directly to the work, the surplus being stored temporarily in the Company's cement warehouses on 32d, 33d and 35th Streets, near First Avenue, from which it was drawn as required. On the dock was located the main powder magazine, a small concrete structure. Considerable use was also made of neighboring piers for unloading electric conduits, lumber, steel, etc.
Fig. 1. SPECIAL STEEL BUCKET
Tunnel Plant.—The spoil buckets, designed by D. L. Hough and George Perrine, Members, Am. Soc. C. E., were a novel feature of the work. These buckets are shown in detail in [Fig. 1] and various photographs. They were of 3 cu. yd. capacity and were split longitudinally, the two halves being pinned at the apices of the ends. For lifting, they were suspended from eyes at that point, and, when dumping, trip ropes were hooked into eyes at the bottom of each side; lifting the trip ropes or lowering the hoisting rope split the bucket, as shown in [Fig. 4, Plate LVIII], and dumped the contents. They were transported in the tunnel on flat cars, and in the street on wagons, both cars and wagons being provided with cradles shaped to receive the bottom of the bucket.
In the tunnels the loading was done with air-operated steam shovels, four (Model 20) Marion shovels being used at various points of the work. In [Fig. 1, Plate LIX], one of these is shown loading the bucket. The cars were hauled by General Electric, standard, 10-ton, mine locomotives, the current for which was taken at 220 volts from a pair of No. 00 copper trolley wires suspended from the roof of the tunnel. The collector was a small four-wheeled buggy riding on the wires and connected to the locomotive by several hundred feet of cable wound on a reel for use beyond the end of the trolley wire. Two 8-1/2-ton, Davenport, steam locomotives were also used in 32d Street, toward the end of the work, after the headings had been holed through and the tunnels would quickly clear themselves of gas and smoke. The steam shovels were supplemented by two Browning, 15-ton, locomotive cranes, which handled the spoil in places where timbering interfered with the operation of the shovels. All tracks were of 3-ft. gauge throughout and laid with 40-lb. rails.