
Patrick Cashin / MTA
April 7, 2011: With the west tunnel excavation complete, workers operating the tunnel boring machine began mining the east tunnel.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
September 2009: Second Avenue subway project

Patrick Cashin / Metropolitan Transportation Auth
October 2009: Second Avenue Subway project
By Katie Cannon, NBC News:
A project that is 90 years in the making had better be impressive, and the Metropolitan Transport Authority's $4.5 billion Second Avenue Subway project does not disappoint.
The undertaking, which began in 2007 and can be found up to nine stories underneath the high rises of Manhattan, is the first line to be built in New York since 1932, and when completed, the initial phase will run from 96th Street down to 63rd Street. There are plans to eventually run the line all the way to Lower Manhattan.
Once there was hole large enough to venture into to photograph, MTA photographer Patrick Cashin began making pictures of the construction.
“I think when you’re down there for all of 10 seconds, you know that this is a dangerous place to be,” Cashin says.
Despite the danger, he visits the site every few months to document the progress of this engineering feat.
For more information and an interview with Patrick Cashin, check out the Flickr blog.
See more pictures from the MTA.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
Sept. 22, 2011: Workers completed tunneling for the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway when the project's tunnel boring machine reached the Lexington Av-63 St station, breaking into the existing subway system. The 485-ton, 450-foot-long TBM used a 22-foot diameter cutter head to mine 7,789 linear feet in two tunnels, averaging approximately 60 linear feet a day.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
January 21, 2012: Second Avenue subway project

Patrick Cashin / MTA
March 20, 2012: Nine stories underneath the streets of Manhattan's East Side, workers are building the cavern that will house the 72nd Street Station of the Second Avenue Subway.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
March 7, 2012: 72nd Street Station cavern

Patrick Cashin / MTA
March 7, 2012: Workers use these tags to check into and out of the work site.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
March 20, 2012. Crews work in the cavern that will house the 72nd Street Station of the Second Avenue Subway.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
February 23, 2013: 86th Street Station

Patrick Cashin / MTA
March 19, 2013: A construction worker who became trapped in the mud at this location of the cavern, which will house the 96th Street station, was rescued by fellow workers and the FDNY.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
April 2013: 86th Street Station.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
April 2013: Looking up out of the construction site that will house the future 86th Street Station.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
April 2013: 86th Street Station.

Patrick Cashin / MTA
April 2013: 86th Street Station

Rehema Trimiew / MTA
May 10, 2013: 72nd Street Station

Patrick Cashin / MTA
May 18, 2013: 72nd Street Station







