the hudson tunnel is absolutely massive and was the first large-scale tunneling project
under a prominent american river originally intended to be the first trans river rail
link between jersey city and manhattan the tunnel took more than 30 years to complete the history
of the tunnel is a fascinating example of early gilded age engineering technology
and is considered a notable engineering achievement today we will discover the story of
the hudson tunnel and how it came to be i'm your host ryan socash and you're watching it's history
the hudson river divides new jersey from new york state and before the tunnels were available
to reach manhattan passengers had to transfer from railroads to ferries which were crowded
and sometimes delayed due to weather conditions including ice and fog that frequently lengthened
the trip so more or less it was difficult for commuters from new jersey to reach manhattan
what's more this area was also known to be highly congested with waterfront cargo ships
meaning that a tunnel was only a question of time and technology after spending part of a night on
a ferryboat stuck in the ice between jersey city and manhattan colonel dewitt clinton a businessman
from upstate new york who made his fortune on the construction of the union pacific railroad
and the utah silver mines conceived the idea to construct a tunnel under the hudson in the early
1800s clinton pressed the need for this tunnel so much so that he undertook the preliminary surveys
at his own expense to investigate the alignment and feasibility of such a miraculous project
as a result the hudson tunnel railroad company was incorporated on may the 26th 1873 making clinton
the corporation's president and operating as chief project engineer financing became a priority
and luckily the hudson tunnel railroad company received 10 million dollars in funding from an
englishman named trevor park with funding in place design ideas began to flow clinton insisted that
excavating the tunnels should be in a compressed air environment this would require not using
a tunneling shield or other acceptable forms of protection against wall collapse clinton
suggested that a compact air environment even though dangerous would be adequate to uphold
the tunnel walls long enough to install a structural brick lining fortunately working
under compressed air to repel water with sinking vertical shafts was not a new technique however
using compressed air for supporting the excavation of a horizontal tunnel this was another matter he
decided to patent the idea while stating quote the distinguishing feature of my system however
is that instead of using temporary facings of timber or other rigid material i rely on the air
pressure to resist the cavin of the wall or the infiltration of water until the wall is completed
this pressure is of course to be regulated by the exigencies of the occasion and may be varied from
anything above that of the atmosphere to 50 pounds to the square inch which is about as much as the
human system will bear with safety additional measures were taken to protect the tunnel
construction from unexpected leaks such as a quote temporary shield of canvas against which the
pressure instantly forces it and seals the leak furthermore after finalizing the tunnel lining
he would allow working debris to accumulate in the bottom of the bore until the tunnel is completed
leaving an opening only large enough for working purposes by this means the area of the airlock
the surface exposed to pressure and the consequent liability to leaks are materially
diminished construction of the tunnel began on november the 17th 1874 with the sinking of
a shaft on 15th street in jersey city the submerged shaft was 9.1 meters in diameter and 30
meters from the riverbank sadly work was halted for five years on december the 15th 1874 due to
litigation by delaware an injunction was brought up concerning the tunnel's potential competition
with the ferries operated by the delaware lackawanna and western railroad company both
were seeking financial compensation for property acquired through eminent domain this resulted in
a termination of construction until the matter was cleared up five years later on september the 22nd
1879 construction resumed workers that were sometimes referred to as quote sandhogs used only
manual labor with shovels or picks and sometimes even dug out the soil by hand the excavation of
the tunnel proceeded at a plotting pace advancing an average of just four or five feet daily the
tunnel ceiling was lined with quarter inch thick iron plates and then the tunnel was encircled with
a two and a half foot wide layer of bricks and as previously suggested a tunneling shield was
not used in the excavation process because the designer believed that silt was strong enough to
hold back the compressed air in the tunnel and for the most part this technique was successful
however a significant blowout occurred on july the 21st 1880 when a leak developed on top of the
tunnel letting out compressed air into the 30 feet of silt between the tunnel and the river bottom
the hole grew more extensive and ultimately the river water flooded the tunnel trapping
28 men eight men amazingly escaped through the airlock but the remaining workers were trapped
and killed the tunnel could not be pumped dry and a cofferdam was unsuccessful so a rectangular
caisson was sunk creating a workspace large enough to repair the damaged sections of the tunnel
tunnel construction resumed in january of 1881 and soon after general william smith joined the
project as chief engineer and introduced several improvements one positive addition to improving
worker safety was installing a bulkhead near the tunnel heading that included air locks
workers could quickly access it in the event of a blowout also the tunnel walls were lined
with concrete instead of bricks and a pressurized discharge pipe was introduced in july of 1881 work
on another vertical shaft began on the new york side of the river at the west end of morton street
with the shafts at around 1.7 kilometers apart and further blowouts would occur for example on the
20th and 30th of august 1882 but fortunately nobody was killed on either occurrence with
over 1 million dollars spent in 1882 trevor park died and finances diminished ultimately operations
were suspended on the 4th of november 1882. pumping was paused and the tunnels once again
filled with water however by march the 20th of 1883 new arrangements were made and the pumps and
compressors were restarted with work proceeding by the 22nd of that same month by the 20th of
july 22 meters of the northern tunnel and 7 meters of the south tunnel had been constructed but work
was terminated once more due to a lack of money clinton unsuccessfully continued trying to find
funding until 1887 and eventually left the project in 1888. technical knowledge and expertise were
sought out by british consulting engineers sir john fowler and sir benjamin baker in late 1887
they were questioned whether it was possible to complete the tunnel for just 2.1 million dollars
as estimated by american contractors baker visited this site reporting in 1888 and their combined
support for the project facilitated 1.5 million dollars in british investment in 1889 construction
resumed with a contract assigned to british contractor s pearson and son founded in 1844.
this time the excavation was carried out with the safety of tunneling shields a technique used on
the 1843 tams tunnel in london the shield had a keen cutting edge around its face which was
divided into nine compartments by vertical and horizontal bulkheads and although everything was
technically on track the project yet again faced financial issues in july of 1891 with the bearings
bank crisis which caused the british tunneling effort to be suspended at this point the total
length of the tunnel was over a kilometer from the north tube and 178 meters for the south to
and like an endless curse the project was abandoned again in 1892 in 1895 english engineer
charles matathis jacobs who had worked in america since 1889 and was primarily known for
his tunneling expertise was invited to assess the practicality and cost of completing the tunnels
which were waterlogged to within 1.2 meters of the top of the jersey shaft his feasibility report was
highly regarded though no action was taken until the turn of the century in october of 1901 jacobs
visited the abandoned tunnels with a lawyer from tennessee who would ultimately become a politician
william gibbs mcadoo mcadoo understood the project's potential and designed a funding plan
with mcadoo as its president and jacobs as chief engineer on february the 6th 1902 the new york
and jersey railroad company was incorporated to undertake the completion of the project
and assure adequate financing the work was resumed under the direction of president william g mcadoo
and despite the numerous obstacles the uptown tunnels were finally completed the north tunnel
was held through on march the 11th 1904 and the south tunnel was held through on september the
29th 1905. on december the 1st 1906 the new york and jersey railroad company became the
hudson and manhattan railroad company mcadoo was the first person to walk from new jersey to new
york through the new tunnels the construction of the hudson tunnel took about 35 years to complete
between 1874 and 1908. in 1907 the first trains ran through the hudson river tunnel with one-way
traffic in each bore on february the 25th 1908 president theodore roosevelt officially started
the system's electricity supply by pressing a button in the white house the launching train
was filled with dignitaries such as new jersey governor john franklin fort and new york governor
charles evans hughes it took approximately 10 and a half minutes to complete the east-west journey
from manhattan to hoboken and then the hudson and manhattan railroad began its public service
at midnight and almost 100 000 passengers traveled through the tunnel on its very first day meanwhile
the idea for a second set of tunnels was derived from a study of the ferry traffic
this pair of tunnels would be located between jersey city and the hudson terminal in lower
manhattan with construction beginning in september of 1905 the study concluded that
a single pair of tunnels was insufficient for the number of people commuting across the river
and that ferries south of the tunnel were used more heavily to meet the demand mcadoo presided
over the start of construction for the second pair of tunnels at about two kilometers downstream
referred to as the downtown tunnels these tunnels would reach nearly 6 000 feet in length
and an amazing depth of 92 feet below the river service on the downtown tunnels began in 1909
and each of the terminal stations were designed with platforms on both sides of the track so that
passengers could exit one side of the train while others entered from the other side the hudson and
manhattan railroad tunnels operated profitably and successfully and in january of 1910 more than
4 million people were carried through them so it's safe to say that the hudson and manhattan railroad
was patronized profitable and successful in its early years however between the 1920s and 30s
the popularity of the automobile skyrocketed road traffic was significantly increasing and ridership
of the hudson and manhattan railroad dropped drastically especially after the opening of the
holland and lincoln tunnels the holland tunnel was completed in 1927 with the opening ceremony
broadcast on all local radio stations this incredible new tunnel was named after its engineer
and cost 48.5 million to build at the time it was the longest underwater vehicle tunnel globally on
opening day 20 000 people walk through the tunnel for two hours and view the engineering marvel
before opening to vehicles at midnight then we've got the lincoln tunnel which opened to traffic
in 1937 charging 50 cents per passenger car the cost of construction was about 80 million dollars
this tunnel consists of three vehicle tubes each of which carries two lanes of traffic and
lies 97 feet below the river's surface it was named in honor of abraham lincoln both tunnels
became a popular means of transportation now we've already made full videos about both the
lincoln and holland tunnel you should check those out but one thing we didn't mention in either of
those previous videos was the impact that these modern marvels had on the hudson tunnel you
might even say they added to the tunnel's curse the recognition of the automobile combined with
the 1930s economic depression led to a lack of maintenance that eventually caused the condition
of the railways to deteriorate this directly impacted the further use of the rail tunnel in the
1950s the hudson and manhattan railroad company declared bankruptcy and in 1962 relinquished
operation to the port authority of new york and new jersey who agreed to look after the railroad
this organization did improve the system they made extensive repairs and improvements by installing
new rolling stock through a division called the port authority trans hudson corporation
also known as path which remains in operation to this very day in 1978 after a unanimous vote
by the society's board of direction also known as the american society of civil engineers the
hudson and manhattan railroad tunnel was nominated as a national historic civil engineering landmark
then on october the 31st 1978 the reveal of two bronze plaques designating
the hudson and manhattan railroad tunnels as a historic civil engineering landmark occurred
one plaque was placed at the hoboken terminal with the other plaque being placed at the world trade
center you see the asce met section submitted the nomination for the designation back in 1977
with asce president walter e blessy unveiling the bronze plaque in a conventional ceremony
where he presented them to the port authority in a formal speech additional administrators who
addressed the audience were representatives of new jersey and new york governors plus the mayor of
new york city and hoboken many others attended this ceremony but perhaps most noteworthy were
members of mcadoo's family including his grandson who was able to speak about how after many years
of starts and abandonments beginning in 1874 his grandfather was able to head the organization
and lead the way to the completion of the railroad project by 1910. unfortunately as the years have
passed the hudson tunnel once again finds itself in desperate need of revival you see the tunnels
were essentially flooded during hurricane sandy which prompted the creation of the hudson tunnel
project which involves the construction of a new hudson river rail tunnel serving penn
station and the rehabilitation of the existing sandy damaged north river tunnel according to
hudsontunnelproject.com the project proposes to rehabilitate the existing tunnel under the hudson
river which carries amtrak and new jersey transits northeast corridor passenger trains perhaps more
ambitious is the construction of a new tunnel that's needed to divert the existing rail traffic
while the historic tunnel is being rehabilitated the united states secretary of transportation
recently had the opportunity to tour the hudson river train tunnels he was accompanied by senator
charles schumer who stated what we call our visit today and subsequent actions is the gateway
turnaround both politicians were able to see the deterioration of the tunnel up close during the
tour with the secretary of transportation commenting quote you go into the tunnel and
you look up and you see concrete spalling you can start to see some of the rebar exposed underneath
you can see the consequence of seawater coming in accelerated by superstorm sandy and further
degrading the infrastructure with the entire technology of the tunnel being outdated
the gateway tunnel project has already received necessary approval with the
secretary stating that he would quote talk through any concerns about spending with local officials
with over 30 years of development and many years of operation the hudson tunnel still stands
which i would say is a testament to new yorkers stubbornness in managing to fulfill a dream but
when considering the turbulence this project faced from financing to competition with the automobile
and now natural decay at the least it will be interesting to see what fate has in store
that's it for today don't miss our new york history playlist click subscribe to check
out new episodes every thursday and saturday and until next time this is ryan socash signing off