Talk:Uptown Hudson Tubes

Construction completed 1904

From: PRR Chronology 1904

• Mar. 11, 1904 Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York Railroad awards North River

Tunnels contract to O'Rourke Engineering Construction Company and East River Tunnels to S. Pearson & Son, Ltd. of London; John F. O'Rourke (1854-1934) has been Chief Engineer of Poughkeepsie Bridge. (AJC 32/20)

• Mar. 11, 1904 New York & Jersey Railroad north tunnel heads meet under Hudson

River between Jersey City and Morton Street; first tunnel under the Hudson; first tube of what later becomes uptown line of Hudson & Manhattan Railroad incorporates portion of Haskin's tunnel begun in 1870s; second tube, begun by S. Pearson & Sons in 1880s is sealed, as it cannot be connected to the flying junction being built on the New Jersey side; Charles M. Jacobs is first person to walk from shore to shore under the river. (H&M, Couper)

• Mar. 12, 1904 W.G. McAdoo gives press tour through New York & Jersey Railroad tunnel.

Death of workers during construction

• 20 workers died of decompression illness/sickness during the construction of the tunnels, and over 3,000 suffered from symptoms. It led to the development of the medical airlock for recompression.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Uptown Hudson Tubes/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Truflip99 (talk · contribs) 21:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Let's do this.

• Refs - convert all caps headlines to regular caps --Truflip99 (talk) 21:38, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

  Truflip99, Thanks for taking on this review. I have converted the reference titles to regular caps. epicgenius (talk) 00:31, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Lead

• Y ce: Omit comma after New York City, New York
• Y ce: The tubes originate at a junction of two PATH lines on the New Jersey shore and cross eastward under the Hudson River.
• Y ce: After the Uptown Hudson Tubes' opening, the H&M proposed extending them northward to Grand Central Terminal, as well as creating a crosstown spur line that would have run under Ninth Street in Manhattan.
• Y Indicate which two stations were closed

Description

• Y Unless the "Uptown Tunnels" is another official/commonly referred to name of the tubes (which is not indicated in the lead or infobox), then I suggest replacing all instances with the correct name.
• Y ce: The Uptown Hudson Tubes travel a roughly east–west path beneath the Hudson River, connecting Manhattan in the east and Jersey City in the west.
• Y ce: At Greenwich Street, the tubes curve sharply north, then continue two blocks before turning sharply east below Christopher Street.
• Y ce: The name "Uptown Hudson Tubes" name also applies to the section of the subway under Christopher Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.
• Y ce: The first PATH stop in New York is at the Christopher Street station; service in New York continues uptown to the 33rd Street terminal, making intermediate stops at 9th Street, 14th Street, and 23rd Street.
• Y ce: Two more stations formerly existed at 19th Street and 28th Street.
• Y ce: The ornately-designed stations in Manhattan featured straight platforms, each 370 feet (110 m) long and able to accommodate 8-car consists.
• Y Is there a reason why these are in past tense?:
  • The stations underneath Sixth Avenue (14th, 19th, 23rd, and 28th Streets, and the original 33rd Street Terminal) contained round columns with scrolls and the station name near the ceilings. The exposed steel rings of the tunnel's structure can be seen at Christopher and Ninth Streets.
• Y ce: Move all refs at the end: On the Jersey City side, the tunnels leave the riverbank approximately parallel to 15th Street and enter a flying junction where trains can proceed to either Hoboken Terminal to the north or Newport station to the south.
• Y Comma: The Uptown Hudson Tubes measure 5,500 feet (1,700 m), or 5,650 feet (1,720 m) between shafts.
• Y ce: The tubes descend as far as 97 feet (30 m) below mean river level.
• Y ce: In both the uptown and downtown tubes, each track is located in its own tunnel. When a train passes through the tunnel, it pushes out the air in front of it towards the closest ventilation shaft. At the same time, it pulls air into the rail tunnel from the closest ventilation shaft behind it. This enables the piston effect, which results in better ventilation.[ref]
• Y ce: The diameter of the Uptown tubes' southern tunnel and both downtown tubes is 15 feet 3 inches (4.65 m), while the more northerly tube is slightly larger, with a diameter of 18 feet (5.5 m) because that tube had been constructed first. --Truflip99 (talk) 15:32, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Truflip99, sorry for the delay, I was busy with studying for midterms and finals and didn't realize you already left feedback. I will fix these soon. epicgenius (talk) 15:24, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: Take as much time as you need. Good luck on your exams! --Truflip99 (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Truflip99, Thanks. I think I've addressed all the issues you brought up so far. epicgenius (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay in this review. Been quite busy at work for the past two weeks. --Truflip99 (talk) 16:00, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

History

Initial construction attempts

• Y In 1873, a wealthy Californian, Dewitt Clinton Haskin, formed the Hudson Tunnel Company...
• Y He intended for the tube to run from 15th Street in Jersey City to Morton Street in Manhattan, a distance of 5,400 feet (1,600 m). Trenor W. Park was hired as the president of the new company.
  • Y I would suggest going with two refs instead of four per WP:OVERKILL. If they are all needed, then considering bundling them.
• When the tunnel was completed, it would be 12,000 feet (3,700 m) feet long.
  • Not quite certain what you intended to state by this. Was the tunnel completed at this stage?
    • So for this, I'm guessing you're trying to convey alternative outcome (had the tunnel been completed...). So let's go with the following:
      • C Had it been completed, the tunnel would have been 12,000 feet (3,700 m) feet long. Trains from five railroad companies on the New Jersey side would have entered one of two tubes, hauled by special steam locomotives that would have emitted very little steam. The engines would have continued to Manhattan...
• C Work progressed for only one month when it was stopped by a court injunction submitted by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, who owned the property at the tunnel's New Jersey portal. As a result of the lawsuit, work on the tunnel did not resume until September 1879.
  • Y WP:OVERKILL again
  • What was the result of the lawsuit?
    • C To who did the judge rule in favor?
• Y The construction method used at the time did not employ a tunneling shield; it used air compressors to maintain pressure against the water-laden silt that was being tunneled through.
• C On July 21, 1880, an overpressure blowout at the tube's top caused an accident that resulted in an air lock jam, trapping several workers and killing 20. A memorial for the workers killed was later erected in Jersey City.
  • Y WP:OVERKILL again
• Y The liabilities incurred as a result of the accident halted tunneling work on November 5, 1882, due to insufficient funds. At that time, water was allowed to fill the unfinished tunnel.
• Y On March 20, 1883, the air and compressors were turned back on and the tunnel was drained with the resumption of work. This continued for the next four months when on July 20, 1883, it was stopped once again due to lack of funds.
• Y In 1888, a British company attempted to resume work on the Morton Street Tunnel, it employed James Henry Greathead as a consulting engineer and S. Pearson & Son as principal contractors.
  • Y Name of company?
• Y S. Pearson & Son subsequently received the project's construction contract from Haskin's company.
• Y The new firm used a new device developed by Greathead, referred to as the "Greathead Shield", to extend the tunnel by 1,600 feet (490 m).
  • Y Any significance/more info on the Greathead Shield?
• Y With a concentration of rock directly underneath the clay riverbed, the tube was aligned to pass directly above it, with very little clearance. To maintain sufficient air pressure inside, the contractors placed a silt layer of at least 15 feet (4.6 m) around it. The silt layer was then removed after a section(?) the tube was finished, which allowed it to maintain its own air pressure.

@Epicgenius: Pinging you just so you are aware :) --Truflip99 (talk) 16:07, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

• Truflip99, Thanks for the ping. I am done with my tests so I should get to this shortly. epicgenius (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

  I have finished making these changes. There were a few that I modified a bit. In the very last example you mentioned, it was the entire tube that had to maintain its own air pressure after it was finished. Also, I trimmed the examples of cite overkill to 3 refs maximum. I think that is a reasonable amount of citations since 2 refs may be too few in some cases, but yeah, 4 refs is definitely overkill. epicgenius (talk) 17:32, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Sources

• Pages needed for source #s: 2, 3, 7, 8, 16-19?, 20-27?, 29?, 31-59?, 61-63?,
  • The ones with question marks (NYT articles) probably don't need it
• Page no longer exists for source #9
• Source 22 looks like a note. Use tp {{efn}} and add a new section using ==Notes== and {{notelist}}
• Source 28 author
• Source 30 needs title of section, page, volume, location (New York)
• Source 51, 52, 63 remove NYT wikilink
• Source 60 - link?
• Source 66 - link NJCU

Content

Infobox

• Location: "and" instead of semi-col
• Construction: en dash
• Character: Underground, not Rapid Transit
• Length: use abbr parameter on all convert tp
• Tunnel clearance: use abbr parameter

Description

• Could you expand upon the name and how it relates to the Downtown Tubes? This information is in the lead, but not in the article's body.

History

Completion of construction

• Maybe just rename this section "Completion"
• William McAdoo is not technically a Tennessean; he was born in Georgia and was prominently known for being a California statesman.
  • I suggest In 1901, lawyer and future statesman William Gibbs McAdoo... John Randolph Dos Passos, a fellow lawyer who invested...
• ce: From this conversation...
• ce: He went on to explore it... an engineer who helped build New York City's first underwater tunnel in 1894 under the East River and who had also worked on the unfinished Hudson River tunnel
• ce: McAdoo and consulting engineer J. Vipond Davies both believed
• nbsp in $8.5 million
• Unlike the North River Tunnels upstream, which would carry intercity and commuter trains, the Morton Street Tunnel would carry only trolleys or rapid transit.
  • What's the significance of this statement? Could it be omitted?
• ce: Originally, McAdoo had intended to complete only the northern tube... Afterwards, he would... within that single tube.
• ce: However, amid worsening ferry congestion... McAdoo devised a plan....
• The Morton Street Tunnel became known as the Uptown Hudson Tubes to complement a pair of downtown tunnels McAdoo had planned to connect Jersey City, New Jersey with Lower Manhattan.

@Epicgenius: Sorry, I meant to ping you about this. I will get this review completed in the next few days. --Truflip99 (talk) 16:29, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Truflip99, I fixed most of these. "Afterwards" is a change in WP:ENGVAR, so I didn't fix that. Also, finding the page numbers for the NY Times references are very hard, and the page numbers for NYT sources aren't really essential anyway since these are intended foremost as web references, not physical newspaper sources. epicgenius (talk) 01:04, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: Thanks! There are some pending items above with the await tp. Could you please address/respond to those? --Truflip99 (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Truflip99, I have fixed these as well. epicgenius (talk) 00:29, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Service begins

• ce: The first "official" passenger train, which was also open only to officials and dignitaries, left 19th Street on February 25, 1908 at 3:40 p.m. and arrived...
• "many businesses moved to Sixth Avenue" - such as?
• There were also new developments centered around Hoboken Terminal. - including?
• By this time, the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) had become a viable competitor, as it proposed to connect its Lexington Avenue line with the H&M at three locations once the planned system was complete.
  • Can you specify the three stations?
• The Sixth Avenue portion of the H&M line also marginally duplicated the IRT's Sixth Avenue elevated, but the elevated served a longer segment of Sixth Avenue, as it extended both north of 33rd Street and south of 9th Street.
  • What is the purpose of having this sentence?
• "McAdoo wanted to extend the uptown tubes under Sixth Avenue to 42nd Street, where they would curve east under the IRT's 42nd Street Line and terminate at Park Avenue."
  • When and why?

Coverage

Initial construction attempts

• Add Haskin's title before his name (engineer)
• Any prior history as to why he decided to build a tunnel under the Hudson?

@Truflip99: Thanks for the comments. I have fixed all of these except for two. As for adding specific businesses and office building developments, it's not important to the understanding of the article, and the sources don't mention the specific businesses' names anyway. Also, the elevated is another source of competition, so that's why it was included. epicgenius (talk) 20:10, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! --Truflip99 (talk) 21:21, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Reconfiguration under Sixth Avenue

• ce: In 1924, the city-operated Independent Subway System (IND) submitted its list of proposed subway routes to the New York City Board of Transportation. One of its proposed routes, the Sixth Avenue Line, ran parallel to the Uptown Hudson Tubes from Ninth to 33rd Streets. With the IND committed to building the Sixth Avenue line, and the H&M's 33rd Street terminal was located both above and below preexisting railroad tunnels, the IND planned to convert part of the H&M tubes. The city had initially intended to take over the portion of the Uptown Tubes under Sixth Avenue for IND use and build a pair of new tubes for the H&M directly below it. However, the H&M objected to this plan, and so negotiations between the city and IND and the H&M continued for several years.

Later years

• semi-colon: The 19th Street station was closed in 1954; the only entrance to the station's westbound platform had been located inside a building, whose owner had canceled the lease for the station entrance.
• ce: The H&M determined that constructing a new entrance was too expensive
• Link PATH
• ce: In 1961, as part of the Chrystie Street Connection and DeKalb Avenue Junction projects
• ce: Although the tracks were located 80 feet (24 m) below ground level, they were directly underneath the portion of the Uptown Tubes that ran along Sixth Avenue; its ceiling just 38 feet (12 m) beneath the bottom of the Uptown Tubes.
• omit dash from express-track
• ce: Service on the Uptown Tubes was suspended for five days in 1962 when it was found that the express-track construction project had drilled to an "unsafe" margin of 18 feet (5.5 m) underneath the Uptown Tubes.
• With the stations along the Uptown Tubes starting to age, in 1986, the...

Awards

• caps, ce: The Uptown and Downtown Hudson Tubes... The coal-fired Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Powerhouse, which generated electricity to run the Hudson tube trains between 1908 and 1929, was also added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 23, 2001. (Turn this into one paragraph)
• ce: From July to October 2018, positive train control installation suspended service through the tubes, mostly on weekends. --Truflip99 (talk) 21:21, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Truflip99, Thanks for the additional feedback. I have fixed these issues. I don't know when the H&M objected to the IND's plan, but it's probably right after the IND published the proposal. I added a date for when the H&M and IND came to an agreement. epicgenius (talk) 23:15, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! --Truflip99 (talk) 16:46, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Last remarks

I did some copy edits (I find it difficult to make the GA requester do the copy edits as I need to be able to see the changes in real time). I'm leaving some final comments for you to complete, which I think will put this article into GA status. --Truflip99 (talk) 16:46, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

• Memorial to workers - the sourced article says the memorial was only dedicated to Woodland. Could you find another source for this memorial?
• By that time, about 1,200 feet (370 m) of the tunnel's route had been constructed. This included 1,500 feet (460 m) of one tube and 600 feet (180 m) of a parallel tube to the south. This does not add up. 1,500 + 600 is certainly more than 1,200.
• Unlike the North River Tunnels upstream, which would carry intercity and commuter trains, the Morton Street Tunnel would carry only trolleys or rapid transit, which used smaller trains. This, in turn, allowed the Morton Street tubes to be smaller and thus less expensive. These sentence just feel out of place. If I'm understanding their intended purpose correctly, here is my suggested edit:
  • Unlike the North River Tunnels upstream, which would carry intercity and commuter trains by 1910, the Morton Street Tunnel was intended to carry only trolleys or rapid transit, which used smaller trains. This, in turn, allowed the Morton Street Tunnel to be smaller and thus less expensive.
• The idea for the downtown tunnels was actually conceived by another company, the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Corporation (H&M), in 1903, but McAdoo's New York and Jersey Railroad Company was interested in the H&M tunnel. The highlighted fragment reads awkwardly. Did McAdoo ultimately build the downtown tunnels? If so, I would just say that, including when he did so.
• The next year, the Uptown Tubes were completed after 33 years of intermittent effort could you provide the exact date?
• As an alternative, it was proposed to connect the Uptown Tubes to the Steinway Tunnel. who proposed connecting these tunnels?
• By 1914, the H&M had not started construction of the Grand Central extension, and it requested to delay the start of construction further. How long of a delay
• The Rapid Transit Commissioners had determined that the Ninth Street crosstown spur was unlikely to start construction any time soon. This is a vague sentence. I think it should be omitted.
  • @Truflip99: Thanks for the comment. The 9th Street spur was another expansion of the Uptown Tubes, but it was canceled by that point. Also, I think there was some disagreement between the sources for the length of tube that was completed. The 1,200 of tunnel route would mean that both tunnels had been completed to an average of 1,200 feet. The average length is (1500+600)/2=1050, which meant that 1,050 feet of route was completed. But one tunnel was clearly much longer than the other. epicgenius (talk) 17:38, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
    • Yes, I understood that part. The particular sentence I highlighted here I believe is redundant, because the reader can infer that construction would not start soon ("soon" is also too vague) with the 17 delay requests, which is why I suggested omitting it. --Truflip99 (talk) 18:03, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
• By 1914, the H&M had not started construction of the Grand Central extension, and it requested to delay the start of construction for at least two more months. The Rapid Transit Commissioners had determined that the Ninth Street crosstown spur was unlikely to be built soon, so permission to build that extension was denied. By 1920, the H&M had submitted seventeen applications in which they sought to delay construction of the extensions; in all seventeen instances, the H&M claimed that it was not an appropriate time to construct the tube. On its seventeenth application, the Rapid Transit Commissioners declined the request for a delay, effectively ending the H&M's right to build an extension to Grand Central.
  • This entire section reads that the commissioners denied H&M twice. Is it accurate? --Truflip99 (talk) 20:22, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

    Truflip99, It's two different things: the Ninth Street spur and the Grand Central extension. I clarified that. epicgenius (talk) 23:21, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

    • Ahhhh. Ignore my previous statement, I totally misunderstood. Passing now, congrats! --Truflip99 (talk) 23:28, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

References