Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910

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Transactions of the American
Society of Civil Engineers, vol.
LXVIII, Sept. 1910

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Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910, by B.F. Cresson, Jr This
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Title: Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol.
LXVIII, Sept. 1910 The New York Tunnel Extension of the
Pennsylvania Railroad The Terminal Station - West
Author: B.F. Cresson, Jr
Release Date: December 13, 2005 [EBook #17302]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
INSTITUTED 1852
TRANSACTIONS
Paper No. 1156
THE NEW YORK TUNNEL EXTENSION OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.
THE TERMINAL STATION-WEST.[A]
BY B.F. CRESSON, JR., M. AM. SOC. C.E.

_Location of Work._--The area covered by the work of the Terminal
Station-West is bounded as follows: By the east line of Ninth Avenue;
by the south side of 31st Street to a point about 200 ft. west of Ninth
Avenue; by a line running parallel to Ninth Avenue and about 200 ft.
therefrom, from the south side of 31st Street to the boundary line
between the 31st and 32d Street properties; by this line to the east line
of Tenth Avenue; by the east line of Tenth Avenue to the boundary line
between the 32d and 33d Street properties; by this line to the east line
of Ninth Avenue. The area is approximately 6.3 acres.
_House-Wrecking._--The property between Ninth and Tenth Avenues
was covered with buildings, 94 in number, used as dwelling and
apartment houses and church properties, and it was necessary to
remove these before starting the construction. Most of the property was
bought outright by the Railroad Company, but in some cases
condemnation proceedings had to be instituted in order to acquire

possession. In the case of the property of the Church of St. Michael,
fronting on Ninth Avenue, 31st and 32d Streets, the Railroad Company
agreed to purchase a plot of land on the south side of 34th Street, west
of Ninth Avenue, and to erect thereon a church, rectory, convent, and
school, to the satisfaction of the Church of St. Michael, to hand over
these buildings in a completed condition, and to pay the cost of moving
from the old to the new buildings, before the old properties would be
turned over to the Railroad Company.
The house-wrecking was done by well-known companies under
contract with the Railroad Company. These companies took down the
buildings and removed all the materials as far as to the level of the
adjacent sidewalks. The building materials became the property of the
contractors, who usually paid the Railroad Company for the privilege
of doing the house-wrecking. The work was done between April and
August, 1906, but the buildings of the Church of St. Michael were torn
down between June and August, 1907.
The bricks were cleaned and sold directly from the site, as were
practically all the fixtures in the buildings. The stone fronts were
broken up and left on the premises. Some of the beams were sold on
the premises, but most of them were sent to the storage yards. Some of
the lath and smaller timber was sold for firewood, but most of it was
given away or burned on the premises.
_Contracts and Agreements._--The main contract, awarded to the New
York Contracting Company-Pennsylvania Terminal on April 28th,
1906, included about 502,000 cu. yd. of excavation (about 90% being
rock), 17,820 cu. yd. of concrete walls, 1,320,000 lb. of structural steel,
638,000 ft., B.M., of framed timber, etc., etc.
This contract was divided into two parts: "Work In and Under Ninth
Avenue" and "Work Between Ninth and Tenth Avenues," and unit
prices were quoted for the various classes of work in each of these
divisions. The prices quoted for excavation included placing the
material on scows supplied by the Railroad Company at the pier at the
foot of West 32d Street, on the North River; there was a clause in the
contract, however, by which the contractor could be required to make

complete disposal of all excavated material at an additional unit price,
and this clause was enforced on January 1st, 1909, when about 94% of
the excavation had been done.
For the purpose of disposing of the excavated material in the easterly
portion of the Terminal, the New York Contracting
Company-Pennsylvania Terminal had excavated under Ninth