UPDATE: Tuesday, April 9, at 4:15 p.m.: Following West Side Rag’s reporting Monday on the mysterious water that has been flooding Broadway from West 81st to 83rd streets, the MTA took action on Tuesday to dry the area out.
Trucks from the agency were seen Tuesday working at the Broadway median between West 82nd and 83rd streets.
“We are working closely with NYC-Department of Environmental Protection to identify the root cause of the problem and have rerouted pumped water away from the median in the meantime,” an MTA spokesperson told the Rag.
The spokesperson did not give any hints on what the exact problem might be, though.
ORIGINAL STORY
By Gus Saltonstall
For those who live near Broadway between West 81st and 83rd streets, you don’t need to be told about the mysterious water that has taken over the area in the last three weeks.
While it is unclear exactly how, for roughly the last 20 days, water seems to be pumping out of the median, i.e. island on Broadway between West 82nd and 83rd streets, before making its way downtown, past Zabar’s, accumulating garbage along the way, and turning right on a hill toward West 81st Street and West End Avenue.
“None of the local stores or residents seem to know why it is happening and for how long it will go on,” one reader emailed West Side Rag about the “mystery water.” “It seems wasteful, but it’s also pretty heavy at times, with cars splashing large volumes of water on people caught on the islands crossing the streets on 81st and 82nd streets.”
The Rag visited the location on Sunday and could quickly confirm the excess water in the area.
We followed the stream of water from West 81st Street and West End Avenue, up to Broadway, and then two blocks uptown to the Broadway island between West 82nd and 83rd streets, where the water seemed to be originating.
Both that Broadway island and the one between West 81st and 82nd streets were clearly flooded.
Despite some curious looks, the Rag jumped into the grassy area of the West 82nd and 83rd streets Broadway median hoping to find the source of the water. While there was no clear entrance point for the running water, there was a large pipe within the median that originated from a fenced off area in the grassy space.
As you can see, though, the pipe abruptly ends, and there was no visible water coming from it.
The Rag has reached out to the New York City Departments of Transportation, who redirected us to the Parks Department, who subsequently redirected us to the MTA, to ask if they have any comment on the matter and if they are taking action to resolve the issue. We will update this story when we hear back.
Despite the timeline not adding up, a man sitting on the bench at the Broadway island between West 82nd and 83rd streets on Sunday did offer one possible explanation — “Maybe it was the earthquake.”
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here.
Its not the earthquake Its the eclipse.
It was there last weekend before the eclipse
Great piece…the mystery lingers. (And — alas, this weird flooding preceded the earthquake by several weeks…)
This is an easy answer It is a sump pump that is draining water from the subway. Go to the center Island and look at where the pies connect to. Its flow is intermittent as the pump only comes on when the water reaches a certain level. The pipes have been there a while but only started pumping out this much water recently. Odds are there is a clogged drain in the tunnel somewhere and/or a ground water leak. There are underground streams all over the area.
Since its the MTA’s fix, I won’t hold my breath till they make an actual repair. Their spending a lot of money putting in new electrical conduit on the line so they can put in new electronic billboards on the 1 line. Think 50th, 79th and 86th most recently
I sent a photo of it to 311 a while back and got no response of any kind
You have to call 311. I get excellent service from them. It’s great that we have them.
311 totally inefectual n my limited experience> Never mind acually solving a probem, they just don’t track them and don’t get back to the complainant.
Our experience has been completely the opposite! (West 71st Street Block Association) I get a complaint number and they write me back telling me exactly what happened. For example, several complaints about garbage and illegal trash resulted in violations given to the buildings. Yes it can be frustrating if they go to check your complaint and find “no conditions exist” (because the building cleaned it up by the time they got here) but they always text back with a link to the original complaint within days! 311 is highly effective Use the phone, app or online, You can attach video, audio and photos!
wrong. they do a good job of follow up
That’s the scary part – we can’t get an answer from any of our agencies. Anyone is accountable for anything?
You are right, For over a month I have seen the water spill out from the pipes in the middle of the Island directly across from Cafe 82.
I am sure the mayor will announce a plan for this soon……
Haha! What about the MTA getting involved.. Of sorry. They’re not terribly responsive are they?! All that money and it seems to go nowhere but down the drain!
that water must also be going down into the subway line that runs under the road. It looks like a lot of extra weight too.
Wondering if the Broadway Mall Assoc has any details about the mystery water since they are probably responsible for the plantings.
Anyways I left a complaint with 311 about this 2 weeks ago which was automatically closed without explanation. Currently have another complaint still open about same issue
Thank you for concern about this issue. The Broadway Mall Association is currently in contact with the MTA, who is running a sump pump, the source of the water, as well as the Parks Dept to resolve the issue as soon as possible and stop the flooding.
– Director of Horticulture, Broadway Mall Association
The MTA knew about this issue months ago. They have a clogged/broken drain line in the tunnel. Rather than fixing it correctly they took the cheap and easy way out.
Make a hole and put in a submersible sump pump, then install piping out of the tunnel to the center island and onto the street. I and numerous others were in contact with MTA etc. with no response.
It was very easy to see what the issue was.
Good for you! However, don’t hold your breath! Shocking that the City of NY and 311…. are SO derelict in addressing these issues.
311 was established to prevent citizens from bothering people in the agencies who are responsible for actually fixing the problem.
Wrong and right.
311 was created to alleviate the amount of nyc residents from calling the different agencies to find out about their family lost members who were involved during the world trade center collapse.
All of the lines were busy, and tide up from the amount of people calling the hospital, police precincts, fire departments. Also Telco who has a central office right behind wtc their communications system became dismantle to a point. The Telco had to be upgraded by channelizing circuits to open more lines. It was long process Mayor Rudy Guliani, Mayor Mike Bloomberg together with Doitt ( Department Of Information Technology & Telecommunications)created the 311 and it became very effective; all of the nyc agencies were connected to 311, including the F.B.L, A.T.F., title companies and state local agencies.
Since D’ Blascio it has been a total disastrous. Non of the new staff are trained to upgrade or are educated enough to take it to a higher level.
It is all about drained the system and no improvements.
311 was created in 2003.
Those old enough to have been around when city published telephone numbers to DSNY garages, local precincts and other agencies in telephone directory have kept those numbers on file.
I’ve been hoping the water that’s being pumped onto the street was related to the subway construction and would end when that work ends, Also – the street around the median on the north side of 82nd and Broadway routinely floods when it rains causing deep puddles and treacherous ice in the winter. I’ve made several calls about this to no avail.
that’s my biggest issue with DOT and their subcontractors. Every 2-3 years, the DOT subs out work for the purpose of milling and repaving B’way. Their subs do a poor job at surveying the grade and just pave (remove top 4″ and replace with the same thickness) without conducting a full survey. Ponding water results every time it rains at several medians – 82nd street; 80th street, 79 Street to name a few.. And our local officials, instead of trying to have the City fix the issue, pretend they are unaware. I wish they walked our UWS a bit more often (and not just on sunny days) to witness these issues themselves.
Not the earthquake. It’s been going on for longer than that.
Maybe call the DEP?
Isn’t there a Broadway Mall group that has some skin in this? Would they know?
Perhaps there’s an irrigation system built into the mall areas? Because there’s no doubt that something is leaking and it’s been going on for weeks.
If you look at 19th century maps of the park in front of the Planetarium, you’ll see there was an active stream that led from 81st Street down to what is now the front of the Planetarium. Perhaps that has something to do with the water.
The flooding was originally supposed to be south of 60th Street but has been moved north by the MTA in anticipation of Congestion Flooding.
There will be fees for swimming to work, restaurants or dentist.
Did you try Environmental Protection? They took over the former Dept of Water Supply.
Obviously a water line leaking. Could also be the islands sprinkler system.
The Malls don’t have sprinkler systems or irrigation.
I’ve called this in to 311 several times. WEEKS AGO
I started building an ark.
You never know…
Late this morning, I was walking by and chatted with one of the MTA crew (an engineer I gathered from our discussion). We talked about a few aspects of this, but the net net is that the sump pumps are doing what they’re designed to do — make sure the subway tracks aren’t getting flooded. — but, there seem to have been no alarms that they’ve been operating at abnormal intervals/volumes and so they weren’t called out until the complaints came in.
The root cause seems to be some fault in the water drainage system in the area that, as a result, is causing the abnormally high water near the tracks that is activating the sump pumps and in turn spilling out on the street. He even played me a video of the water rushing under one of the street manhole covers that he had recorded earlier and gotten DEP involved. In any case, it sounded like the right people were on it, and that in the future, none of us should just assume that the MTA and DEP know about a problem because its so glaringly obvious.
I’d also like to note my appreciation that when a random stranger (me) walking by just asked, the MTA crew were not only cooperative and pleasant, but happy to engage in the conversation.
MTA knew about the problem months ago. Rather than fixing the clogged drain line in the tunnel correctly, they did a cheap patch to the problem. Dig a hole in the track bed and put in a submersible pump and then run a pipe up to the center island’s eastern side to drain.
Many areas of Manhattan are built over long since covered over streams, brooks, ponds, and other bodies of water.
For moving bodies of water their natural destination was either East or North rivers.
Both Broadway and Eighth avenue subway lines as they run through UWS onto Harlem and points north have issues with ground water. This coupled with water that comes from street level means system has a number of pumps to shift that water somewhere.
Homeless who live or otherwise make use of subway system often know where water can be found. Ditto for the rats (Norway rat is never far from source of water).
City had a rather wet winter including heavy rains recently. My guess is MTA pump system for that area of subway is either overloaded or something is broken leading to pools of surface water.
WSR, thank you so much for taking this on, as soon as you printed the story on Monday, they were on it on Tuesday, not sure why they let all this water spill. I am a fan of your website and read it to find out what is affecting our neighborhood. Again, thank you!