CITY ROOM; Old Waterfront Is Unburied, Briefly
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: July 14, 2010
How often in the 21st century does one have the chance to see a 19th-century river wall embedded under a 20th-century highway?
Rarely enough that amateur urban archaeologists might want to hasten to the observation gallery in the Winter Garden overlooking the World Trade Center site. For the next few days - but not much longer - a 40-foot-long section will be visible of the massive bulkhead that marked Lower Manhattan's edge until the creation of Battery Park City. What can be seen are several courses of granite blocks, each about two feet high, two feet deep and four feet long. They are arranged in a kind of monumental Flemish bond, with the blocks' long and short sides laid in an alternating pattern.
(Fred R. Conrad of The New York Times took the close-up panoramic view on Monday.)
Zachary J. Davis, a principal archaeologist with the Louis Berger Group, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to study and document the river wall, said this portion of the bulkhead was finished in 1899. As excavation proceeds, archaeologists will get a better picture of how the wall was constructed. Contemporary diagrams show the bulkhead to have combined granite, concrete, small and large stones, and timber cribbing.
Though far more modest in appearance than the great bridges of the late 19th century, the Hudson River bulkhead, which runs from the Battery to 59th Street, was arguably just as instrumental in permitting New York to flourish. Its construction allowed ships with deep drafts to nose right up to the edge of Manhattan Island. Think of the array of ocean liners that once docked along West Street.
It is possible that the public hasn't seen this portion of the Hudson River bulkhead since ferries stopped running between New Jersey and New York in 1967. (They have since resumed.) That was when the Battery Park City landfill was begun, using the earth and rock that were being excavated to create the deep foundations for the original World Trade Center.
The old river wall lay undisturbed under West Street since then. But this part of the wall stands in the way of an underground pedestrian passage that will link the World Trade Center and the World Financial Center. ''This becomes the replacement for the bridge that was destroyed on 9/11,'' said Henry R. Caso, director of construction for Brookfield Properties, the principal owner of the World Financial Center and Winter Garden. It is to be finished by the end of 2012.
The only way through the wall is demolition, so the time to see this historical remnant is now.