By Amelia Roth-Dishy
As of 10 p.m. on Saturday, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection was working to repair a water main break that occurred around noon on West End Avenue and 70th Street.
The main, which burst in the middle of the avenue, was visibly pumping water throughout the afternoon. It affected service in all six buildings of the Lincoln Towers residential complex, which is bounded by Amsterdam and West End Avenues and 66th and 70th Streets. Some apartments had water service while others still did not. The Rag has reached out to the DEP for further details.
Update: As of early Sunday morning, water service had been restored and the main was fixed. Also, according to a commenter water was also out north of 70th
Water outages are not limited to Lincoln Towers– water is out north of 70th Street as well.
In the last few years the city has been spreading what seems like an awful lot of salt when snow happens or is expected. I wonder if that has accelerated corrosion of water mains and other infrastructure.
For what its worth, water was pumping out of a manhole cover in the middle of the WEA/70th intersection at around 10am.
Water water service was restored to 185 WEA around 5:15am
I walked by w66th and WEA on New Years Day and there was an unmarked service crew digging south of the intersection. Me thinks they damaged something.
Many of these water main issues in whole or part likely can be put down to current weather pattern.
Cast iron does not like constant fluctuations in temperature, yet that is exactly sort of weather NYC has had these winter.
It’s cold or freezing for a day or two, then it warms up to high 50’s or even low 60’s. Then it goes back down to low 40’s or even 30’s, but not for long as temps soon rise again.
Very likely pipes are buried deep enough to avoid temperature fluctuations. I would also guess that means that by the time groundwater reaches the pipes, much of the salt would already have been filtered out by the soil.
My sinuses feel the same way about temperature fluctuations as do the cast iron pipes — HA!
We had a water main break on 62 Street in January. I lost three storage bins of valuable goods that were buried under four feet of water. And now the City is bankrupt. I will have to sue to collect a penny, but it’s not likely.