Hey, there! Log in / Register
Built like a brick outhouse
By adamg on Mon, 11/09/2015 - 8:17am
With water levels in Jamaica Pond fairly low, and no recent rain, you can take a look into the culvert that runs from under Perkins Street into the north end of the pond. And what you see is how they built things to last back in the 19th century, when somebody built the culvert for the brook that runs from the smallish Sargent's Pond on the other side of Perkins into Jamaica Pond.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
They did indeed build things
They did indeed build things to last then. There are many culverts and sewers underneath Boston that most people don't know about that still work well with no deficiencies in sight. They knew how to do it right back in the day.
19th century public works
It's amazing the quality of the engineering works from the 1800s. We can't get things to last even during the construction of them and these engineers from 150 years ago (or so) without any calculators, computer models, high tech equipment or much mechanization were able to build things that worked and continue to work without falling apart.
I was told by an MWRA worker that the sewer lines leading out to the old MWRA building on the Chelsea Creek (by the Chelsea Street Bridge) had been designed so well that when they built the new pumping station next to the old building they didn't dare disturb any of the old culverts and tunnels because they had been engineered so well, they were still working perfectly and they didn't want to fuck them up because they knew they couldn't do as good a job replacing them. Might have just been some hyperbolic apocrypha but when they can't even get the windows installed at the Govt Center head house before they're messed up, or the Tunnels are all leaking like sieves as soon as they're completed and the ceilings and light fixtures are falling apart in just a matter of a couple of years.... pathetic.
Were things really built
Were things really built better, or is it that the only works left in use after 100+ years are the ones that were built well, while all the shoddily built houses and public works fell into disrepair?
And do we want to really go back to the "good old days" when worker conditions and safety were miserable and it was accepted that there might be dozens of deaths for a major public works project?
Saul,
Do you have examples of shoddy public works and construction in general from 100 plus years ago? We actually have tons of both in this part of the country,and most are still in use, functioning properly. I can think of many examples of poorly built and designed projects and construction that dates from just the past 40 odd years. And if you go to other parts of the country, and are used to New England homes, you'd be amazed at the shoddy, inferior new homes constructed over, say, the past 40-50 years.
Of course, in regards to worker safety issues, what you said is correct. But that was mostly due to technological reasons. All the more impressive that they were able to achieve what they did. America's first subway, in Boston, was designed and built just a few decades after the Civil War, and opened prior to the Spanish-American War.
The 1800's were full of
The 1800's were full of railroad bridge collapses.
Here are but two of the many.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtabula_River_railroad_disaster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasconade_Bridge_train_disaster
And a third, which happened right in our UHub backyard.
http://www.universalhub.com/2012/its-disaster-month-roslindale
I'm not discounting the amazing public works that were constructing without modern machinery and computing.
But don't also pretend that there were not also numerous shoddily built public works.
Except that, in that era
railroads were private companies, and not considered public infrastructure. Like happens in many private companies today, the railroads' goals were to construct their lines as quickly and cheaply as possible.
You also need to understand that in the 1850s and 1860s, the science of bridge engineering was not nearly as advanced as it was even by 1900.
Bridges ...
Engineers in the 1850s and 1860s knew full well how to build good bridges. The problem in Roslindale was that the company hired to build the Bussey Street Bridge turned out to be a shell run by a guy with no bridge-building experience and he cheaped out - with disastrous results.
They were really built better
Unlike the Big Dig, which went how many times over budget and leaks like a freakin' sieve.
I wonder if John Kerry thinks this culvert was a bargain or not.
But maintained with modern technology
Many of the buildings around Boston are built on wooden pilings which last for hundreds of years if they remain submerged below groundwater level. However, sewers, subways and many other manmade subterranean constructions cause the water to leak in and drain away causing "hotspots" under parts of Boston where the water levels decline and threaten the foundations of the buildings.
One of the interesting technologies they have to repair leaky brick lined sewer lines is to insert a felt tube that is impregnated with resin. Then they blow hot air in and the tube takes the shape of the sewer line. As the air cools, the resin/felt adheres to the tunnel and voila - the leak is fixed, no more hotspot and the nearby buildings are good to go for at least several more decades without the cost/inconvenience of digging up the street and replacing the line with modern piping.
All underground tunnels
have an issue with groundwater leeching into them. The issue is not how do we prevent this from happening, but how do we control it.
The problem with the Big Dig tunnels is that the designers failed to recognize during the design process that this was an issue worthy of serious consideration.
Double vs Single and VE
I'd heard the engineers had designed a double wall system for just this reason and for cost purposes it was changed to a single wall.
VE, Value Engineering: There is no value and no engineering.
true dat
That is true -- the crappy stuff that was built and immediately shit the bed or had a catastrophic failure later on (like a certain molasses vat in the North End) are not around anymore to bear witness to crappy engineering design. Certainly many tenements went up in flames and are no longer around. Looking around my n'hood in Eastie there are some very nice old buildings that have withstood the years quite well and then there are some from the same time period that have not held up so well. It just of feels like the turkey:classic ratio has really gotten skewed in recent years.
Dark Tide
Is always worth reading. One of the most outrageous, yet understandable, parts was how the company that owned the tank reacted to clear evidence of leaks (you could see the molasses dripping from the tank's walls) was to paint it dark red (so you could no longer see the leaks).
You mean "Dark Tide".
You mean "Dark Tide".
Yes, I do
Thanks.
There are many amazing
There are many amazing examples of sewers and culverts from the late 19th and early 20th century in this BPL photo collection.
You see a culvert.
I see the world's longest pizza oven.
Yeah, thanks...
Thanks Adam for publicizing the tunnel I use to get to work every morning. It *is* well built though, if a bit of a tight squeeze. I promise not to eat any more photographers I come across in here...
~Jessie
So Cool!
Always wanted to see the system that makes the pond mysteriously rise and fall at regular intervals.
Trees as water mains
My father has a slice of one of the trees used as a water main in Boston. It was taken out of the street sometime in the late 80's early 90's. It was still in use.
mouth of muddy river too
There was a hollow tree trunk helping the muddy river empty into the Charles under Storrow Drive up until a few years ago. Thing lasted functionally for about 100 years!