December 11, 2005

Subway expansion hits centuries-old Battery Wall

Workers digging a tunnel for subway expansion in battery park may have found the oldest standing wall in Manhattan, the New York Times reports.

The 45-foot stone section may be a remnant of the original battery built as early as 1700 to protect the colony at its southern tip.

"It's one of the most important archaeological discoveries in several decades in New York City," Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation, told the Times.

Yet it's directly in the way of a $400-million, four-year MTA project to build a new South Ferry station for the No. 1 subway train. Thus begins the drama:

"It's premature to discuss this thing at all, other than to say that we have made this find and we are protecting it," Mr. (MTA spokesman Tom) Kelly said.

The authority's handling of the site has already rankled some preservationists.

When an excavation crew discovered the eight-foot-thick wall in early November, it was one continuous stretch of cut and mortared stones about 45 feet long, archaeologists familiar with the project said. But pictures and drawings produced by the authority's employees show that the wall is now in two smaller pieces about 10 feet apart. The gap, the archaeologists said, was created by the steel claw of a backhoe before they could halt work at the site.

December 11, 2005 11:56 PM in Downtown, History, Transportology

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