Posted on 01/15/2003 12:19:54 AM PST by weegee
GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF IT
Underground concrete mystery puzzles rail crews
By RAD SALLEE
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
Metrorail engineer Jim Schroeder had often wondered why maps of underground utilities in downtown Houston always showed the rats' nest of pipes and cables beneath Main Street detouring around the McKinney intersection.
Now he knows.
On Jan. 2 a backhoe operator, ripping up pavement on Main for Metropolitan Transit Authority's light rail tracks, struck concrete -- a lot of it.
After clearing away about a foot of black dirt, construction workers exposed a flat block more than 6 feet square, with a metal rod sticking out the top.
They tried to unearth the object, but after digging down 6 feet they still had no idea where the bottom was, or what the thing might be.
"Before we started pounding on it, we tried to find an owner," Schroeder said.
City public works officials and utility companies were notified, but nobody claimed possession.
Schroeder also questioned some old-timers, but none could remember any monument, flagpole or other construction in the dead center of the crossing.
Whatever it was, Schroeder said, "It was in the way ... so we just started chipping it apart."
Oil and gas consultant Bill Owens has watched the daily struggle from a sixth-floor window at 1001 McKinney.
"They've been hammering on it for about a week," he said. "One of the secretaries had to go out and get a pair of earplugs.
"They didn't seem to be making any headway, and we were speculating they might have to use explosives."
Actually, says Schroeder, they'll just shave a few more inches off the top.
Some 18 inches of concrete have already been smashed into chunks, and another 6 inches should complete the job. "Then we'll be able to go right over the top of it," he said.
That news disappoints Owens.
"I think they ought to take it out," he said. "Don't they have any curiosity?"
Are you kidding? responds Schroeder. "For all I know it may be 20 feet deep.
"We'll leave it for future generations to find, and wonder what it is."
Schroeder, a Metro consultant employed by the engineering firm Carter & Burgess, compared excavation in urban areas to "a big treasure hunt."
"You're always finding things you're not expecting and sometimes you don't find things you do expect," he said.
Some utility lines and pipes are buried 20 feet deep, and many do not show up on maps. Then there are the other surprises.
Construction workers at the former Allen Parkway Village site found a graveyard.
China dishes and an antique Lea & Perrins sauce bottle were unearthed at the county courthouse complex.
And excavation for Metro's transit streets project found -- perhaps ironically -- wooden crossties from long-silent trolley lines.
Meanwhile, the best guess about the mysterious concrete hulk is that it once served as the base of a tower from which police controlled traffic signals.
An old photo published in the Chronicle on Dec. 12, 1999 -- the Houston Century Edition -- shows such a tower at Main and Capitol. The photo dates from the 1920s or 1930s, and Schroeder said the maps he used go back 75 years.
"One of the (elderly) people I talked to thought he recalled there would be cadets from out of the training academy who would stand up there in their khaki shorts and direct traffic," Schroeder said.
But that's just a theory, he cautions. No such tower is shown on the maps, and no such object has been found under other downtown intersections.
Yet.
"I think they ought to take it out," he said. "Don't they have any curiosity?"Are you kidding? responds Schroeder. "For all I know it may be 20 feet deep.
"We'll leave it for future generations to find, and wonder what it is."
On the bright side, at least there is the admission that Houston's overpriced, poorly planned rail system down Main Street will eventually be torn up (when future generations will have to deal with the concrete mystery once again).
If they are curious of who the owner is, I think this gentleman can help:
Ants aren't organized into communism, they must be a higher lifeform than some humans.
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