Robert W. Jackson (1) (1950–)

I’m reminded of various arguments of the form “If we can build (some technological marvel – the Apollo program is popular) then we can (accomplish some desirable social situation – end poverty, for example)”. The problem, of course, is the Apollo program was an engineering problem and ending poverty is a political problem, and politics is vastly more complicated than engineering – as any engineer knows. Robert Jackson’s Highway Under the Hudson – A History of the Holland Tunnel spends his first eight chapters discussing tunnel politics.

Tunnel politics divided into those who didn’t want the tunnel built at all – ferry, lighter and car float operators who felt they would lose business; those who wanted to skim tunnel building funds – politicians in New York state, New York City, Jersey City, and New Jersey; and those who wanted the tunnel without any strings attached – other politicians in New York and New Jersey and freight handlers in New York. Interestingly enough, nowadays the tunnel is primarily thought of as a conduit for passenger cars, its original purpose was to handle freight; passenger cars were dismissed as “pleasure vehicles”. A tunnel commission was formed in 1913, but things went slowly until the “coal famine” of the winter of 1917-1918. During a week of record cold, the Hudson froze over, preventing coal barges from reaching the city. Buildings had to turn off their heat and schools and courts closed as they ran out of coal. There were riots outside coal dealers with people demanding coal that didn’t exist. The New Jersey side had plenty of coal, but there was no way to get it to New York City. Within a few days, food supplies began to run short as well. Eventually it warmed up and the river thawed, but the event led to renewed demands for a tunnel and the tunnel commission finally began to get moving. Eventually things were narrowed down to two designs – a double-deck tunnel (with two lanes in one direction on the top deck and two lanes in the other direction underneath) and two separate bores (two lanes in a single direction in each bore); the twin bores were selected, which caused political wrangling and delay.

The next delay came about over land acquisition for the tunnel entrances and exits; to the surprise of the New York members of the tunnel commission there was a provision requiring New York to pay half the cost of widening streets on the New Jersey side. This caused a great deal of argument, with resignations, angry outbursts, and accusations that Jersey City politicians had secretly bought up land that would now have to be purchased for the tunnel at inflated prices.

Another set of disputes involved claims that it wouldn’t be possible to ventilate the tunnels adequately; this lead to a series of tests measuring the exhausts of various makes of cars and trucks, plus some experiments at Yale with college student volunteers exposed to automobile exhaust. I was interested to find that although people were aware that automobile exhaust produced carbon monoxide, and that carbon monoxide was poisonous, no one knew quantities. I wonder how it was measured? Nowadays it would be infrared spectroscopy or gas chromatography; back then I image they had to use wet chemistry methods.
At any rate, eventually everything got settled, there was a groundbreaking ceremony in 1920, and sandhogs began digging tunnels and ventilation shafts. Jackson does an excellent job of explaining how caissons and tunneling shields work and why caisson workers are subject to “the bends” and need to decompress before returning to the surface. Chief tunnel engineer Clifford Holland made many visits to the tunnels to inspect the work (with necessary compression and decompression), and Jackson speculates these contributed to his mental breakdown in September, 1924; he went to a “rest home” in Michigan, and died there of heart failure (during a routine tonsillectomy) on October 27, 1924; he was 41. The assistant engineer, Milton Freeman, took over. Two days later, the first tunnel “holed through”; the commission official changed the name from the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel to the Holland Tunnel. Freeman, in turn, died in March 1925 at the age of 55 of acute pneumonia; once again Jackson speculated his numerous trips to the tunnel contributed. Now the original third engineer, Norwegian born Ole Singstad, took over. The tunnel opened for vehicular traffic on November 13, 1927 (pedestrians had been allowed to tour for two hours the day before). The tunnel very quickly exceeded traffic use predictions, even during the Great Depression.

An incident of some interest to me as a former HAZMAT worker was a fire and explosion in the tunnel in 1949. A truck driver picked up a trailer in Jersey City, to be delivered to a dock in Brooklyn; he wasn’t told what was in the trailer. About 2500 feet into the tunnel he heard an explosion, looked in the rear view mirror, noticed his trailer was on fire, stopped it, leapt out, and hitched a ride on another truck. What the trailer contained was eighty 55-gallon drums of carbon disulfide. Nowadays, such a load would have to be placarded with a DOT “3” (flammable liquid) and “6.1” (poison) placards, and it most definitely would not be allowed in a tunnel; back then, though, the ICC rules merely said drivers should “avoid” taking such cargoes through tunnels, and a court case gave the conflicting instruction that drivers had to use the “shortest practical route”. Jackson suggests that there were separate Port Authority rules regulating hazardous cargoes in the tunnel, but doesn’t spell out what they were. At any rate CS₂ is extremely unpleasant stuff, with a low flash point (-30C°), a low autoignition point (100C°), and a wide explosive range (1-50%). The fire quickly involved other trucks, collapsed part of the ceiling in the tunnel, and cut communication lines; it reignited once after it was thought to be extinguished and some of the vehicles were so badly damaged that they couldn’t be towed out and had to be cut up in place. (Jackson makes the only technical mistake I noticed in this chapter, saying that firefighters used “oxygen masks” while fighting the fire. They quite likely received oxygen after they got out of the tunnel, but an “oxygen mask” is just about the last thing you want to be using in a fire; he means an SCBA – self-contained breathing apparatus, which uses compressed air).

Jackson’s last chapter discusses the long term effects of the tunnel, some of which were unanticipated. It increased property values on both sides of the river, and increased traffic congestion. In discussing congestion Jackson mentions Ole Singstad, the final engineer on the project, who noted at the end of his life that although he was proud of his work on the tunnel the city should have built more rail and subway lines instead.

An interesting book. I thought the chapters on politics dragged a little, but I bet someone more interested in urban development and political science would find them fascinating. Illustrations of people involved in construction, plans, and construction photographs. Footnotes; a relatively short bibliography and index, I couldn’t find some things I wanted to look up.… (més)

"The first in-depth history of the creation of this famous tunnel. A vivid account (that) features a colorful cast of characters—from politicians to hundreds of engineers, businesspeople, local citizens, and especially the "sandhogs" who had the dangerous job of actually digging the tunnel....a compelling story and dramatic reminder that government can accomplish great things that the private sector cannot. For all transportation and American urban history collections.--Richard Drezen, Brooklyn, NY ( Full review, Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC )

"Jackson has excavated a vast amount of information, bringing this authoritative history of a ground-breaking tunnel to life." -Publisher's Weekly… (més)