Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 108: West Side Elevated Highway

Episode Date: July 9, 2022

truck go vroom *thump* (bonus episode is late, will be arriving next week, i'm sorry - roz) Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Our Merch: https://www.solidaritysuperstore.com/wtypp Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 40178 Philadelphia, PA 19106 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Some sources: Konvitz, J. W. (1989). William J. Wilgus and Engineering Projects to Improve the Port of New York, 1900-1930. Technology and Culture, 30(2), 398. doi:10.2307/3105110 https://forgotten-ny.com/2001/06/millers-crossing-the-west-side-elevated-highway/ https://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON020.htm Caro, Robert (1974). The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-394-48076-3. OCLC 834874.

We conduct this very professionally here almost as the only podcast. It's the only podcast. We're the best podcast. Yeah, it's suck at Red Scare. Exactly. Yeah. We have more. I took them.

We have more. And that overtake. And now we don't have more money than them. No, we don't. No, we don't. There's much money, right? No, because we have a two dollar tier. And you guys don't give.

Subscriber. Yeah. That's the important thing. Yeah. But also, we are harder than them. Don't take money from Peter Thiel. You're going to lose subscriber. And it was true.

We didn't do that. So it takes money from anyone, even though I'm begging by snooze.com to give us their money. We all I can say is we are now even hungrier for power. So subscribe to the thing. Subscribe to the Patreon. Subscribe to the YouTube channel.

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Yes. That's probably coming soon. I don't think we could even avert that at this point. How many subscribers do we have? When we get 100,000 subscribers, we'll do challenge coins or something. Oh, fuck. That's a sick.

Yeah, OK. So what do you see on the screen in front of you here, though? Oh, right. We've got to introduce the podcast before I say this. Welcome to Well, there's your problem. It's a podcast about engineering disasters with slides. I'm Justin Rosniak.

I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are he and him. All right, go. I am the person who's talking now. My name is Alice Koval. Kelly, my pronouns are she and her. Yay, Liam. Yay, Liam.

Hi, I'm Liam Anderson. My pronouns are he and him. And no, I'm not the guy yelling at you from Twitter. The last couple weeks. No, you've been nice. You've been you've been on a sort of niceness kick, which is great for us. Yeah, although, oh, God, give it give it a minute.

Yeah, I just, yeah, I don't know, man. Being at the Jersey Shore all the fourth of July we got and just being surrounded by these thin line motherfuckers, just like, why don't you? Why don't you just have the D's and see the fuck off? Give me your house. What at what point do you have enough thin blue lines together that they become the thick blue line?

Yeah, the thing is, it's cultural appropriation, right? Because the thin blue line was originally the thin red line. And there was the thin red line against Napoleon, against the Imperial Guard. So unless you're fighting for the preservation of common law against, you know, European, better organized government tyranny, then, you know, what are you even doing? You're insulting my heritage and my culture.

I think the thin, I think the thin red line might even have been the Argyle and Southern Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, which my grandfather was in. So, you know, her family connection to the thin red line. Cara Delevingne's grandfather or whatever ran the blackened hand, so he could always do worse. Oh, yeah, that's true, isn't it? Yeah. So she's a she's a weird lady.

She is a weird lady. No, no, no, you are not you are not getting through this alive. What do you see on the screen in front of you is a big hole? Hmm. That's supposed to be the mood. Oh, it's a big hole. This is a very aesthetic photograph. I feel like they should have some like cursive writing over it. I feel like it's a story, maybe.

I think it's a very aesthetic story overall. You know, but this is big hole in the west side elevated highway in New York City, which is the subject of today's episode. Greatest city in the world. Yes, be baby. Hey, we have the greatest big hole in the highway. But the Mets. Yeah. Well, this was built before the Mets.

This is a pre Mets piece of infrastructure. Oh, it's like a dodges. Yeah. Hmm. We still had the Giants, too. Wow. But first, we have to do the goddamn news. I just learned about these things today. From this. Someone's.

It's a little up to me. Someone blew up the Georgia guide stones. So these things, these things are kind of like eugenicists, like Stonehenge, as I understand it, that was intended to survive in New York City by Ted Turner. Allegedly, no one knows who put them up. A turner, allegedly, could be Ted Turner. It's Ted Turner.

Yeah, it's like the set of big granite granite blocks, right? And they like they have, like, quote unquote, guidelines for humanity on there. They open strong, of course, with keep the human population under 500 million, which is, you know, at this point, that's a big job. And there's a lot of lot of considerations about how you would get to that figure, right? I think I thought the idea was that, given that these are made out of granite and are written in like 50 different languages or whatever, that this is for if nuclear war has already happened and you're like these.

This is our advice to the guys. Yeah, repopulating the earth is don't don't fuck too much. Otherwise, you'll just do it again. Well, I mean, OK, I mean, maybe they could withstand a nuclear blast because that's a more distributed force. But it turns out if you blow up something right next to them, they're fucked. Because the other thing is that like evangelicals in particular hate these fucking things I'm learning. Oh, yeah, they really fucking hate it.

There's there's like there's like a whole there was like a whole congressional who was running for, yeah, I want to blow up. The guy was running for governor on blowing them up. Yeah, it's it's they they have invited it's funny how much people hate them, you know, and I can like I can look past the message to just enjoying how much they troll evangelicals. It's because it's the New World Order and its satanist and its globalist and all of these other things in fairness.

It was built by a shadowy cabal that advocated for eugenics. But what's just had Tartar? It's just a weird dude, a weird bunch of dudes. It's it's a perfectly valid American tradition, which has now been partially destroyed by terrorism. Yeah, this is like this is like fucking the Lib version of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Yes. Yeah, wait, shit.

What were the other what were the other nine things? If one was reproduction wisely, proving fitness and diversity, unite humanity with a living new language, rule, passion, M dash, faith, M dash, tradition, M dash and all things with tempered reason. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts. Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court. Avoid petty laws and useless officials. Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize, truth, M dash, beauty, M dash, love, M dash, seeking harmony with the infinite. Whatever the shit, the end dash. You know, cancer on the earth, M dash, leave room for nature. M dash, leave room for nature. It's like Satan, I guess. This is a hell of a thing. Pretty uncontroversial shit.

Like it's sort of old fashioned, progressive eugenics. It's not like it's not like it's just like this. That Margaret Sanger shit. Yeah, this was stuff that back in like 1920, you were crazy if you didn't believe. Let's get real. Yeah, yeah. It's erected in like 1980.

Yeah, they were erected in like 1980. Yeah. So, OK, we did. We did find out eugenics are actually bad in the interim, obviously. But it was the Cold War. People. Yeah, we didn't know that eugenics was bad yet, I guess. It's like, no, plenty of people did. But like all of the people who were considered serious or successful, absolutely were eugenicists.

This is true, yes. Well, anyway, so they blew up, looks like two of the stones. So two out of the whatever many languages they're printed on there lost about two fifths of them, about 40 percent. So it's in like Sumerian and an ancient Greek and shit. It's wild. Yeah, they got in everything. So now Ted Turner's like factos and more executor or whatever is going to have to come down there and rebuild it.

It's true. Well, in other news. Actually, I have one more thing about this. A lot of news outlets are calling this the American Stonehenge. And I would say the American Stonehenge is probably Carhenge. Carhenge is cool. Yeah, Carhenge is one of them. There was one in Rockbridge County called Foamhenge.

That's still around. It's just Stonehenge, but rendered in foam. Big foam blocks. Yeah, that's another American Stonehenge. This is a minor American Stonehenge. There are several bigger ones. All right, in other news. I don't even know what the like at time of recording, right?

Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has sort of proven something that I was saying about our constitution. He does not intend to resign, apparently. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Essentially, he can't be forced because everything in our constitution depends on custom or convention, has absolutely no sort of way of legally enacting it. And so he's just clinging on by his fingernails and it's so hard working.

I wish him every success. I hope he drags the whole Conservative Party down with them. It's pretty funny. I hope by the time you're listening, he's still Prime Minister. And he's like got a got a cabinet consisting of like one guy. That would be pretty funny. It's just him and one guy running all country. Some demons.

That'd be really funny. Because all of all of the like people who want to be Prime Minister within the Conservative Party some day, pretty much have resigned in protest because of, you know, the latest scandal, but basically because of the sort of accumulation of them. And so now he's just left with just whoever pretty much. He can't have like they can't get a vote of no confidence against him. People keep going to Downing Street today, like queuing up to tell him

to go and resign and he won't do it. This is the job he's wanted his entire life and he is going to keep it by any means necessary, it seems. I kind of got a plot that just the dog at this. Yeah, like, no, drag me out if you hate it so much. It's just going to be like Bojo and like one other guy. I don't know, like, let's say Jacob Rees mobs or someone and they're going to be running the whole UK government.

Like that scene and it's always sunny with like Charlie and Mac in the mail room. You know, it's good. It's what we deserve. This is the government we deserve. It's like this is the guy deserve. It's just two guys. That's absolutely true. I mean, the depressing thing is the fucking Keer Stammer

might win a general election and become Prime Minister off of this shit. Limping over the finish line merely have like now that his opponent has dynamite it, his entire policy. We applaud you, Bojo, and you're whatever the hell it is you're doing. I'm enjoying his sort of Samsungic moment of like dragging the temple down with him. I encourage Bojo's corruption, but I would encourage him to go further. Yes.

If you're if you're going to lose, you might as well be a dick about it. Yeah. And it's it's also much like Trump in a lot of ways. We've discovered the one this one weird trick that allows you to survive in a sort of, you know, democracy of quasi-democratic institution, which is just not leave when you sit like when people tell you to. Just a strategy, really. All right. Yeah, it's it's very much like, you know,

you can get away with a whole lot of crap just by doing nothing. If you don't feel ashamed, you don't do the thing that you're fine. That's why most conservative political opinion is shame is good. Yeah. And so this whole coup has been sort of, you know, the dog that didn't bark, right? And that every so often some political editor will will tweet like from a senior source, it's over. And then it isn't over.

It just continues to roll on. Just continues. Yes. OK, well, the good news is we've made it nine and nine minutes and 34 seconds without Zencaster crashing. I just checked it as well. Zencrasher. Yeah. So, yeah, it's been over for, I would say, a couple of days now. Maybe it will still be over by the time you hear this. Really. So we have our mechanism to remove the president of the United States.

Obviously, we have we have a couple. We have the 25th Amendment and we have impeachment by which a president can be removed from office. Do you truly not have like any mechanism? Ours are hard to use as is. So, so for sort of inside baseball thing, basically a prime minister can be removed by two means since the passage of the Fixed Term Parliament Act.

You can have a vote of no confidence within their own party. Right. That I know. Which they tried it failed. And that was the rules, right? Yeah. And do you see the rules for that? He's got once right say for a year. Yeah. The second option, which is sort of the nuclear option, is a vote of no confidence of the whole House of Commons,

which would mean the Tories going to Kier Stammer and asking him to initiate that. Oh, that would be real funny. And then and then, like, I think some some majority or super majority of the House of Commons has to, like, tell him to fuck off. And then he may have to. But in practice, like that seems so vanishingly unlikely to happen. The current move is to try and change the rules.

I'd say that the 1922 Committee. Yes. Yes. That's the Committee of Backbench Conservative MPs. They're going to try and change the rules so they can vote of no confidence him again. But Boris's threat at this moment is if you try if you try and vote of no confidence me, even if you win, doesn't matter. I'll just call a snap election and also deselect all of you. So he genuinely might destroy the Conservative party.

So that is fun. I really hope everyone calls everyone's bluff here. The banter timeline. This is the funniest thing that can happen. It's pretty funny. And of course, the past is now clear for Prime Minister Matt Hancock, which is what I want, of course. Obviously. You have you have some kind of some kind of.

It's good. Yeah, he's going to like do some like parkour flips over the fence outside number 10. Oh, hell, yeah. And just get in there and he's going to, you know, just like just like. What's his name? Guy who tried to take over Venezuela, Pete Buttigieg. Right. Yeah, it is. It is clearly time for Silvercorp and the CIA to start funding

arming training, the sort of moderate rebels against the Johnson government. Do you do you mean the IRA? Is it tight? Listen, if any president was going to do it, it's it's Joe Biden. Oh, yeah, you just have a BBC. I virus is Joe Biden. Ports nine hundred million dollars into an IRA, rearmament. Yeah.

Sinn Féin wins the north. Sinn Féin wins Cornwall. Sinn Féin wins. Listen, if Joe Biden. Sinn Féin wins the city of London. If Joe Biden went on national television and said, all right, Boris Johnson has started dismantling the Northern Ireland peace process. I'm going to finish it.

The arms and the special forces go into Belfast tomorrow. I would be forced to offer critical support. I I love the idea of like making like the army rangers liberate Belfast. You are now entering free dairy, except it's except it just says you are now entering free dairy. And for some reason, there's an American flag overhead. God, that's a cursed fucking image. America takes it over directly.

They stop calling it London Dairy. They start calling it New York Dairy. That was the goddamn news. OK, so what holes we're going to talk about holes. But first, we have to talk about some context, which is Manhattan and moving freight and goods around in Manhattan. Right. We've talked about this problem. We have a problem.

We have talked about half a dozen times. This is true, but we're going to talk about it again. OK, step one, what is Manhattan? OK, I'm a steak. There is like this island, right? And they bought it with some all about holes. Yeah. And it's and it's it's in the middle of a sound.

So it's got a river on either side of it. Yes. And you got to transport a lot of shit onto this island. Yes. You know, so in like the early part of the 20th century, right, you know, you you have a lot of industry in Manhattan, right? And you have a lot of vertical industries, particularly the factory that manufactures triangle shirt wastes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The factory that manufactures like rectangular shirt wastes. Yes. You have a child labor institute and you got a maddy glaze. The maddy glaze is a child labor institute. You got the you got the factory that turns the Irish white. You got, you know, any number of industries. Yeah, for some reason, all the buildings said, did you know the Irish were the first slaves?

Which is true. So that's a joke. No, that's a joke. That's a joke. You know, don't don't fucking get mad at me in the YouTube comments. I don't think you had you had me for a second. Since you had, you know, you had a lot of industry on Manhattan, all the stuff for that industry came in through the port of New York, which was very inefficient, right?

Yeah, you got to unload. You got to fucking break bulk a whole thing of shirts with the shirt wastes, like half of them go missing at a time. I don't I'll lay my cards on the table here. I don't know what a shirt wastes. Right. It's just it's just a shirt shirt. Is it just a shirt? Yeah, it's just a shirt.

This is bullshit. This is fucking nominatively. I hate this. It is just a shirt, right? I thought it was like I thought it was like a separate extra panel that you had like added to your shirt. It's like a woman's blouse. Yeah, I was I was thinking it was like you have your shirt and then you have your like shirt waste. And I wasn't quite sure what the shirt waste was

other than that, like it was a paste that you added to the shirt. Just like you had it like you had like a regular shirt and you had kind of like a beaver tail in the back. And that was I thought you'd talk about like a maybe a camisole or something. I don't know. No, it's like it's like two thousand. So I. Yeah, so I was an only child and. Right. So, you know, you have ships that come in with imported goods.

I don't know. Maybe some Egyptian cotton or something, right? And then, you know, you would want to have your triangle shirt waste factory as close to the pierce as possible. So you have reduced transportation costs, right? You know, and so you had a lot of like industry that was like not only like clustered there was stacked on top of each other, right? So, you know, if you look at, for instance, this, the quote unquote, fireproof ash building, right?

ASCH, you know, this is the whole we don't go to NYU. Yeah, this is the home of this was the home of several textile manufacturers, one of which was triangle shirt waste, right? And this form of industry was promoted by the fact that moving stuff down the street was pretty difficult. You know, if you but if you. If you were only a couple blocks from the docks, right? You know, you just put the stuff, you put the cotton on the cart.

You drove it over, you brought it into the building, and then you set it up an elevator and then people work on it and turn it into shirt was until, of course, they all die horribly in a fire, right? Yeah, because we invented freight elevators way before like the safety elevator for people. Yes. So you could just you could move shirt wastes and triangles and whatever up and down relatively easily. Yes. But if you had once you had the send stuff the other way. It became an ordeal because you had to ship things to New Jersey.

Hmm. Yeah. But before the time when Trenton made and the world took. Yes. Here was sort of Trenton taking. So shipping stuff to New Jersey was pretty difficult because, you know, you had to ship things to New Jersey in order to go further west on the railroads, right? Spotted and this. Well, you did float it.

No, no, but not even like on a ship or a barge or anything. You just put it in the river, hope it floats and just kick it in the trail. Well, no, what you did is you loaded it onto railroad cars and then you floated the railroad cars across the river. Just like loose. Yes. I think a railroad car is pretty heavy on a barge. So let's look at like one of the most modern buildings that was built for this purpose. The this is the Sterrett Lehigh building.

It's one of my favorite buildings in New York. Well, that's really nice. Oh, yeah, it's still there. It's it's really cool. And it reminds me of it reminds me of like the first like fifties and sixties lines of Lego system buildings. Oh, yeah. So in order to move.

Again, your method of moving stuff from New York City to New Jersey involved loading it onto rail cars in Manhattan and then floating those rail cars across the river, right? So this was a big warehouse built by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and the Sterrett Corporation, which later went on to build, among other things, the Empire State Building and Trump Tower. Sort of a land of contrast, land of contrast. Yeah. In order to move this huge quantity of freight,

you know, you'd have you have this building. It has some garage entrances where trucks can go in. The trucks drive down a ramp into an elevator. The elevator brings the trucks up the warehouse to various loading docks, where they're then unloaded. Then later, once the freight has been sorted, it goes into a freight elevator that brings it down to the first level, right, which is where the railroad tracks are.

This would be a really fun and really finicky management game. Oh, yeah. They were a really good CSGO map. That stuff is then loaded onto freight cars in the bottom level of the Sterrett Lehigh Building, right? And then they take a little switcher engine and they shove it across 11th Avenue, right? Onto a barge.

The barge brings it across the Hudson River to New Jersey. OK. And this this is all happening in Manhattan. I thought this was like after you'd barged it into New Jersey. No, this is the process of getting the stuff onto the barge. Jesus. All of your all of your triangle shirt wastes and stuff need to be trucked in, sorted, then put on the train and then put on the barge and then shipped to New Jersey and then resorted.

And this is this was the largest and most modern facility for doing this. I think this building was built in 1936. But it's designed to fix a very stupid problem, which is that the Port of New York was inherently inefficient because of where it was, right? And this is a problem which really could only be overcome with this horrifying thought of collective action and planning, right? Because you have to like do some sort of government here.

Yeah, you'd have to do some government, right? Again, this is the most modern freight house on the West Side Waterfront. Most of them are older and more congested. You could see in front of the building here. This is the this is the Baltimore and Ohio warehouse. Behind this was the Erie warehouse, which was just an open lot. You know, you know, some of these some of these buildings

were from just after the Civil War. You know, some of them were just open rail yards confined in one block. Every railroad needed its own freight house and its own piers and its own railroad crossings, right? Yeah, because we're still like duplicating and triplicating everything because of railroads. Exactly, because they're all competing with each other.

They're all fiefdoms. They're all little fiefdoms. I find that like thinking about the railroad in terms of a capitalist system does not make as much sense as when you think of it in terms of just being straight up feudalism. And I think you have to advance through the railroads in order to get to sort of like socialism in one country, which is Conrail. Yes.

And I was afraid is, of course, breakbooks. So every time you handle the freight, some of it walks away, it goes missing. Yeah. It all just goes into a camel coat at some point. So every railroad has this problem except the New York Central, right? They built their westside line in 1849. Imported goods or manufactured goods in Manhattan could simply move directly from ship to warehouse to train

with no car float. Hmm. Didn't have to put it out. Why doesn't everyone do that? Oh, well, from there, you can ship it as far as Chicago, just on the train, right? However, the line was built in 1849 and had some very 1849 qualities to it. I don't like where this is going. On the other hand, some very cool shots of trains just in the middle of the street.

This is true. Yes. This guy on a horse is going to have a bad day. Oh, no, he's he is. That is the cowboy. That's a 10th Avenue cowboy. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah. He's he's there to prevent people from getting run over by the train as much as they otherwise would, right? So, yeah, the it ran straight down the middle of 10th Avenue

all the way to 72nd Street from St. John's Park Depot, way down here, right? The trains proceeded very slowly. They had the guys on horseback warning people get out of the way to the train, but they still managed to mow down like hundreds of people and horses each year, though. Yeah. So to grease the tracks. Exactly. Yeah. Didn't you listen to the atmosphere in the early episode? Yeah, exactly. But this was this was the cost of doing business, right? The New York Central Railroad could at the expense of mere human lives

provide much more competitive service than their rivals. And horses. I got the horses, man. Yeah. And and the horses. But the net result of this is that the Port of New York had to contend with, you know, 10th and 11th Avenue being constant, rolling disaster areas, right? Yeah, because you're trying to run a freight railroads directly along the whole length of some guys. Yeah, just through some guys.

Yeah. And you have like, yeah, like horses and carts. This is an image of, I believe, 11th Avenue. You can see we have early automobiles. We got horses and carts. We got big stupid trucks. And then this is like a 14 track railroad crossing here. That's terrific. And then there's a train that just goes right.

You don't even need a marshalling yard. Just drive the truck alongside, have them open the boxcar doors and throw your shit in further down. We see a train that just goes directly down the street. Fuck it. Who cares? There's not any rules. So I'm driving across like I have rice away here. Yeah, you're the train.

Yeah, it's the first check. What do you have right away is are you the are you the train? So the congestion in the Port of New York really came to a head in World War One, right, when a terminal capacity in New York City was strained to its absolute limits. Yeah, we got to get a bunch of how it's the shells and guys and and and shit to Europe. Yeah, exactly. And you know, again, the way that worked is every single shell got shipped

to New Jersey, it got car floated over. The boxcar went into warehouse. They unloaded it and then they hold it back across the street onto the boat. But it already had to go on to a boat to get. Yeah, but the big boats can't dock in New Jersey. Richard boats now. The big boats dock in Manhattan, the small boats dock in New Jersey. My head hurts.

Could you not? Could you not dredge New Jersey a bit? No, shut up. OK. I. Yes, you could. But sunk cost fallacy is a thing. I see. OK. And in this case, also probably like sunk barge fallacy. Yes. So, you know, Uncle Sam had to step in, nationalize the railroad under the United States Railroad Administration.

Again, everything, everything went, you know, everything came to New Jersey. Car floated across the Hudson River, goes across 11th Avenue, unloaded into the warehouse, sorted, carted back across 11th Avenue, loaded in the ship, then it goes to Europe. Right. This is this is like any sort of like factorial or satisfactory type game where I've been playing it. And I've made a solution that just about works. It makes my head hurt to think about and it would make my head hurt more

to try and disentangle it. So it's just it's just there forever. And I'm always chasing like marginal efficiency. Also, I do weapon loadouts of war zone. So after the war, people are really sick of this. And the solution had to be found. And one solution was the creation of a new entity called the Port of New York Authority. Right. Oh, no, no.

I don't want to go on the piss covered bars. You're like, you're like, I didn't piss bars. I didn't get my entire dick and balls shot off in bellow wood to get run down by a by a freight train. Well, you did to get you got it to be run down by a bus, Alice. Yeah, exactly. And therefore I support the creation of a government body that's going to like maintain everything worse. A series of places that will just smell like piss all the time

in order to make the city worse. For my 30th birthday, I made Apple Pie Moonshine. I told a buddy of mine who had who I had woken up at like three in the morning driven to New York and drove him down to Philly because he had no money. Yeah. And I told him, hey, if you're going to have a glass this, you just split it with a buddy and he didn't fucking listen to me. And he woke up.

I don't know, Roz, if you remember this sweaty and hungover, the most hungover he'd ever been in his entire life. I drop him off at the bus station, takes the bus without functioning air conditioning to Port Authority in New York. He gets off the bus. He immediately throws up at a trash can. He stumbles back to his RV down by the river and takes me a paragraph roughly of death threats the next day.

Can we pause for a second? I got a pee. OK, go for it. Oh, you guys can just keep talking. I'll come back. Yeah. And think about the spirit. One of the spiritual homes of this podcast, the Port Authority bus terminal. I've been in there exactly one time and it was like it was it was you know, I didn't seem that bad to me. It was like I've seen pictures. And every every photo I've seen of the Port Authority bus terminal,

it looks like it's going to probably be great when the in 1978 hits it. But until then, it's just kind of stuck in the limbo. There's actually some great photos of like the the original Port Authority bus terminal, which is still sort of encased in the modern structure. And this is cool, like late Art Deco, early, mid-century modern thing. I can't have that. That sounds nice. Yeah, you got to get up.

You know, in case that and some gigantic like ex-girder do hickeys. Yeah, we've built the Chernobyl sarcophagus, but in order to protect you not from radiation, but from seeing Art Deco. Horror of ours. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I mean, zone is like it's a complex place full of anomalies. You can see curves. But it's just like not a great way to like move the amount of people they need to move through that terminal.

What they should probably do is trains. What that's impossible. I'm hearing 24 story, fifteen hundred thousand square acre Mario Cuomo Memorial bus station. Of the ramp complex outside that thing is crazy, too. You know, considering like the what is it? That's that's the back and recording again. OK, so you have this concept,

this new concept comes up for the public authority, right? So right, the idea. Previously, we just have a corporation, which is you give it to a bunch of guys in Toppats. Yeah, for a defined purpose and they do the thing. It's a government body, but it's largely independent of like electoral ism. It's it's it has you appoint some guys

and then they they go and do their own thing for a long time, right? Pure technocracy. It's very technocratic. It's it's so good is what it does. There's this there's this thing in the like the early 20th century called the good government movement, which rarely governs. And when it does, it's not very good. You know, but the idea is, OK,

if we just get the right people in the office and give them the authority they need, we can we can improve society. Overcome everything. Yeah. Yeah. So I am angry and heartbroken. And that's why today I'm asking you for $50 because I was too busy not wiping my own ass competently to do anything about overturning Roe v Wade. And if there are any decency in the world, I would capital building.

It would be funny if the Port Authority or any sort of public authority acted like the Democrats didn't just use anything that went wrong as an excuse to fundraise from the public instead of anyone else. It would be really funny if you get an email from the Port Authority. Want this to suck less? Like give us $10 or we'll kill this puppy. Yeah, yeah, you get an email from from the Port Authority and we'll kill this. Liam, can I count on your support?

Yeah, you gave someone you you're fucking your your email address six years ago. And now a post authority intern is like messaging you. I I would actually be much happier if the Port Authority resorted to directly like crowd funding or just like if you join the VIP Port Authority bus here, you actually get your own personal bottle of Febreze. So when you get off the bus, you can you can try and retain some of your dignity

as opposed to throwing up to the Port Authority bus terminal trash can. You get your own VIP trash can. So this is my can. It has my name on it. So the Port of New York Authority had, you know, it could it could, you know, it's independent of like electoral influence. It has a large bonding capacity.

It can raise a whole lot of money based on future rallies. Yeah, sure. And they can exercise eminent domain. Right. Oh, no. So in order to to a limited extent, though. Oh, at least initially. So they their first action was to hire one of their first actions was to hire consulting engineer William J.

Wilgus. Good name. Yeah. The self thought. I am not sure. I didn't look this up. I was going to link the paper. I learned all this from in the description because a lot of this was pretty wild. So William J.

Wilgus was a civil engineer for the New York Central Railroad. He designed Grand Central Terminals, double decker track and platform layout. He designed designed it to capitalize on air rights around the station. He's a big fan of people hitting their head on low beams. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you got a you got a Grand Central Terminal now, the actual station takes up like two blocks on each side of the headhouse. Everything else is built on top of the tracks around it.

Well, oh, what paid off to do this by like the head injury cork. I'm on slide eight. And what in the goddamn hell am I looking at? Mm hmm. That's where we are. What? What? That's what I'm about to explain. Oh, boy.

Ah, he invented modern third rail electrical systems along with Frank J. Sprague diagram of Bin Laden's cave. Approaches guarded by tribal militiamen for audio only listeners. The Mujahideen is hanging around here. Yeah. Approaches guarded by Port Authority militiamen. Throwing up a trash can, of course. So he he had high aspirations for his railroad career

and seemed to be on a natural track for the presidency of the New York Central Railroad, right? Now, I wish he hadn't invented the third rail because the third rail system fucking terrifies me. It's not it's not a very good way to distribute electrical power. I mean, AC is clearly superior to DC. Number one. Number two, I don't like I don't like a sort of a live rail staring me in the face. I don't appreciate that.

You ever see the Chicago L that has the grade crossings with the third rail? Oh, no, no, no. Fuck, no, absolutely not. They have like they have like special like the the fences go down into like these sort of you ever seen those fences that prevent cattle from going down a road? Yeah, sure. They do that in Chicago on the grade crossings for pedestrians. I didn't know the thing is right.

Any time I see a third rail system, it's like the railroad is like it's standing in a shadowy alleyway. It's open its coat and it's like, hey, kid, you want to die? Yeah. You want to fucking perish? Or would you like some more? Yeah. So this is Chicago. So Wilgus, you know, he looked like he was going to become he was on he was heading for the highest levels in New York Central.

But then a train crashed in the Park Avenue tunnel in 1907. That's a tunnel that leads to Grand Central Terminal, right? The railroad immediately tried to pin the blame on him. Going so far as to destroy all of his documents, proving his innocence, right? Jesus, they fully like drafist him. Yeah. And he he was he reconstructed the documents for the court and proved his innocence. But they kicked them out of the railroad shredded fucking documents.

The rules, they kicked them out of the railroad. So he started a career as a consulting engineer, right? I hope he was getting paid double. I call this one the I call this one the reverse solid north. Now, before before Wilgus came to the Port Authority, he had a proposal for a privately funded solution to the Port problem, right? His first proposal was what if we had small underground trains that would link the various warehouses of the waterfront

to a central distribution terminal in New Jersey, right? Now, see, the thing is that objectively fucking rules basically prehistoric path. Is that the idea? Yes. You can see only for freight only for freight. Yes. I mean, you can see the line here. You had all the lower Manhattan served by these little tunnels. You would have had one central tunnel that goes out of the Jersey.

No, no, no, we should still do this instead of instead of shirt wastes or whatever. It's whatever they make in Manhattan now. So like tax evasion schemes and software or whatever. Just ship all of that, put it on crate, ship it underground. Yeah. And these these little trains would run in eleven foot diameter tunnels underneath the sidewalks or in this case, underneath the middle of the street that you see in the photo here or not the photo, the engraving, whatever you call it. They'd carry removable ten foot long containers

and this this is not so absurd as it might seem like so impractical because this sounds like a freight subway. The Chicago sounds like it rules. The Chicago Tunnel Company had been operating successfully on this model for two years at this point. Right. OK. They had like even tinier tunnels. Right. They're like miniature trains.

Yeah, they were I think they were about the same size, but they weren't like multiple tracks like this diagram shows. Chicago Tunnel Company was all like a one track railroad. But because they had so much tunnels, it didn't matter. Now, Wilgus estimated he'd significantly reduce the cost for all railroads to ship cross harbor while also breaking the New York Central's monopoly. And he pitched this and all it requires you to do

for is for like all it requires is four or five railroad barons to work together on one thing ever. Right. Yeah. Boy for impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Impossible. To us. Listen, listen. All you have to do. The fuck over the central is just do one thing together.

A rump. A rump. Yeah. So they pitch he pitched it to the executives of all the other railroads. You know, the Delaware Lackawanna, Western, the Erie, the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, the various other ones, right? But the central had a trick up their sleeve, right? Which is that back in 1906, the New York State Legislator had ordered them to elevate their tracks on 10th Avenue

at the railroad sole expense, right? At this point. OK, yeah, because they're because they were sick of like horses and people getting mulched by those giant trains. Yes. Now, this 40 million dollar plan was under review. Wilkes's plan, by contrast, would cost one hundred and twenty million dollars. Right. Damn. And that cost would be borne by all railroads serving the port.

How many railroads are we talking about total? And I mean, I know there's a shit ton of what would have been class ones, but I assume there's also some dinky railroads hits sitting in there. We're looking at the Central Railroad in New Jersey, the Erie, the DLNW, the Long Island Railroad, which at this point was independent Lehigh Valley Railroad, the New York Central, New York, Susquehanna and Western Pennsylvania Railroad. And this map shows the West Shore Railroad, but that was part of the

you said 120. So 15 million a railroad, roughly. Yeah. OK. So they would have had to, you know, pay 15 million dollars to get the system running, right? And so they shot each other instead. Yes. Yeah. Because I could operate when you could be a little bitch instead. The Central was willing to eat the cost to elevating the line on 10th Avenue

to preserve their dominant position while the railroads in New Jersey saw the plan as an expensive measure to prevent the New York Central from eating 40 million dollars. Right. So why am I going to pay 15 million dollars to prevent the New York Central from paying 40 million? So there's no railroad support and nothing happened. And congestion got worse. I mean, I love markets.

This genius. This genius is. This whole official term is deals. Deals. They call me. They would put a man. They would put a man on Mars in my lifetime. They put a man, people. We can put a man on New Jersey within our lifetime. Some people, some people make symphonies for me.

Deals in my art form. All my losses were lessens, I said, as I could read a trade down 10th Avenue. So Wilgus Wilgus gets appointed by the Port Authority. Now he has theoretically more authority, right? There's no way to get railroads in an act of revenge. Yeah, he has all Vanderbilt's like the Romanovs for honorable service against all Vanderbilt. Yes. He murdered.

What's his name? The various Cornelia. Yeah, I was thinking the reporter guy. Anderson Cooper, Anderson Cooper. That's who I'm thinking of. Oh, because he's gay. Well, that too. Not because he's a Vanderbilt.

It is a Vanderbilt. His mother was what? Gloria Vanderbilt. That sounds right to me. So in 1916, now that Wilgus is a major consulting engineer for the Port Authority, right? He starts promoting what he calls an automatic electric freight distribution system by means of an underground belt line, right?

Oh, I like this. I like that. Yeah, it's the hyperloop, except this one is useful. Yeah, it works. So a belt line is a type of railroad that exists in a lot of United States cities and it's used used to exist in many more, but essentially in cities with many large congested and proprietary railroad terminals, they would build a belt line around the periphery of the city.

It would have its own terminals and yards be easier to move traffic between railroads and industrial customers, so on and so forth, right? Some of them were independent. They had their own engines and rolling stock. Some were jointly owned by several railroads. Mostly they were just regular railroads with short holes and a lot of traffic. So there was like a Chicago belt line. There's an Atlanta belt line that's currently being turned into a trail

due to gentrification. There was a Philadelphia had a belt line which ran on the streets for a lot of its length. It was not very good. But Wilgus's automatic electric belt railroad was another beast entirely, right? You would have eight car trains with an electric locomotive that would be dispatched automatically from large classification yards in New Jersey, right? It's when you say automatically, what are we talking about here?

I mean, it's automatic. Yeah, but like how from from a punch card from like, I am not entirely certain how it would have worked. I think they just, you know, I think they probably would have sent the train manually. But or imagine something like the Hershey Park Chocolate World Experience or they're just sort of all on a loop. Well, they were they were going to run on a loop from New Jersey in the Manhattan, make several stops, right?

And then they would come back around. Yeah. OK, so it's just got it, you know. So it looked like I'm not sure if they were able to handle normal freight cars or if it was like everything had to go into the special freight cars. But they wanted to do like intermodal swap body type cars, right? So you have a you have like a you have like a container that can be lifted onto a truck that that is what I'm calling my gender affirming clinic is swap body.

Swap body. Yeah. But this was this was a man out of time, right? Like he's he's predicted containerization and a lot of like sort of precision fucking freight. Precision schedule, railroading. Yeah, precision scheduled railroading doesn't involve precision. No, that's true. But I mean, small pay precision. Yeah, yeah.

They would have built several large terminals in Manhattan, right? Where? The train, the automatic electric train arrives in the basement and then they lift the container up with an elevator or the freight car. Right. This is like so forward thinking. It's wild. Yeah. And that and so, you know, you either unload the the freight if it were a regular railroad car or you would

move the swap body container onto a truck, it would drive out of the warehouse. Right. You know how I make jokes about like going back in time of the Glock. I've done this a couple of times. What you used your time machine for was to go back to see this guy's office, but you just forgot a copy of the box that you were reading and you just left it on his desk. I'm ready to go right now. I highly recommend it. It's really good.

So, you know, and there would be several of these terminals in Manhattan. This would solve the port problem permanently, right? And they eliminate the need for all these car floats. It would eliminate it would open up the Hudson River for more steamers, right? And there would be no freight trains on the streets of Manhattan once and for all. Right. And this is pretty crazy. But you got to consider the time period, both the Brooklyn, Manhattan, transit and independent subway systems of that era could take

most steam railroad freight cars at that point if they needed to. And they were building like a hundred miles a tunnel like every two years or whatever. Right. So this is a head guys like being shot out of the water. Opposed to the Brooklyn Bridge or whatever. Yes. This is just sort of the natural evolution. And like just eight years after this was proposed, London Mail Rail opened, right? And that was a mail rail. That was a fully automated system.

What is really funny to me is that he was doing this under the auspices of the port authority when it would destroy the port. You know, it would have been good for the port because the port would still be able to operate from its current location while having most of the marshaling yards out in New Jersey. Right. I see. Disregard that. I'm very stupid. No, you're not. I'm tired is what I am. Yeah, you're sleepy. It's OK.

But the Port of New York Authority put this on its long term plan, right? They're like, this is a great idea. But simpler options existed for the short term, mainly establishing a conventional belt line railroad and consolidating the car float operations to a centralized terminal. Right. Hmm. And this required railroad approval. And most of the railroads agreed with it on principle, right?

And other railroads played hardball. Because you've got to get like 15 of these motherfuckers to agree. Exactly, right? But what do they what do they want in return? What do they want to return? What they want in return for a very efficient system? The Vanderbilt. What they want in return for a very efficient system

that would improve their profits and improve their long term viability. What they want in return for that horrible price is the Port Authority has to take over all the commuter trains. My favorite thing about railroads is how much they hate running passengers. All railroads since the beginning of time have hated passengers. Yeah, you can tell taking a railroads. Yes. It's like being at the Caribbean, being on one of those resorts.

They hate you or they want you to know they hate you. I believe it was the DLNW that was most insistent on this one. You have to take our commuter trains. And this was probably outside the scope of the Port Authority's power. They just barely they did manage to cobble together with the several railroads, almost a full belt line that could run to a centralized car float terminal. But the DLNW controlled one mile of that line.

And they're like, no, no, oh, gosh, not going to happen. Take out commuters. I'm going to make Norfolk Southern look like a pussy. So in the meantime, of course, the traffic on a waterfront was still terrible and. Hi, it's Justin. So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to. People are annoyed by these. So let me get to the point.

We have this thing called Patreon, right? The deal is you give us two bucks a month. And we give you an extra episode once a month. Sometimes it's a little inconsistent, but, you know, it's two bucks. You get what you pay for. It also gets you our full back catalog of bonus episodes. So you can learn about exciting topics like guns, pickup trucks or pickup trucks with guns on them, the money we raise through Patreon goes to making sure

that the only ad you hear on this podcast is this one. Anyway, that's something to consider if you have two bucks to spare each month. Join at patreon.com forward slash WTYP pod. Do it if you want or don't. It's your decision and we respect that. Back to the show. Guy named Julius Miller was a Manhattan Borough President, right? That's that's this guy here, right?

So Manhattan, I know who that other guy is, but we know who that other guy is. Yeah. So now, although these are very different guys, but they do wind up working together here because Julius Miller is, you know, he's a Tammany Hall guy, right? I thought part of the reason why the Port Authority existed and why it had the authority that it did was to keep it out of the city of New York and the boroughs of New York's political corruption. Yes. Yeah, counterpart, shut up.

And I think the railroads assisted in this. Miller was, of course, Julius Miller was, of course, acutely aware of the traffic. Swinging, swinging light over your head, dark interrogation room. Some guy asking you over and over what you think of Pullman cars. He was acutely aware of the traffic problems, plaguing Manhattan, right? You know, trains whacking into people, being unable to move on 11th Avenue, right? So on and so forth. By 1925, he was very unhappy with the lack of progress being made.

Yeah, because Tammany Hall, the thing about Tammany Hall is that, like, compared to some of our more modern corrupt political organizations. They always got stuff done. They didn't like it when things were bad because it lost the money. Whereas now it's actually good to lose money because it means you're another pussy or whatever. Seems very mad at the Port of New York authorities lack of progress on the comprehensive plan and with the New York Central's failure

to implement their elevated line, right? So Miller decided, all right, we're going to force this issue. And the Port Authority was like, we're not going to get any help with the railroads. We're just going to have to do a trucks plan, right? Oh, no. So. So they devised the West Side Elevated Highway. Right.

And this was going to be one of the first elevated highways ever built. An hour and five minutes in is our episode. Yeah. It's the topic for today. It's important as context. Well, they had been at this point, not so many elevated highways built. Or I think this was the first one.

There had been highways built like limited access highways. They were not common and they were pioneered by our other guy here, Robert Moses, Robert Moses, a friend of the show, the show, Robert Moses, right? Returning champion. Big Bobby Mao. Now, most highways at this point had been built in the form of quote, unquote, Parkways, right?

And the idea of a parkway. Drive for the parkway. Yeah. Kind of a drive for it. Yes. You know, you you. Like you're telling that joke when you're not telling it. It's a parkway because it's got like grass by the side of it, right?

Yes, and no, and no black people in buses to ruin your trip to the beach. Yeah, I mean, that's it's always that's one of the things about the power broker, which is I think needs a little bit more context, which is most of the buses back then were double decker and double decker buses did not work on those parkways. But there shouldn't have been any bridges. But at the same day, at the same time, Robert Moses basically got up in the morning and rolled a D20 to see

what ethnic group he was going to fucking drive out of an area of New York. Not a few of our people, I will say. Not a not not a I mean, definitely not a town hall guy. Robert Moses's problem. He was he was a corrupt fuck. He was terminally middle class. You know, his his his view of how like the highway system should work is like, you know, this is a nice leisurely scenic drive we all do.

And in the face of insurmountable evidence, that's not how it worked. He was like, I always keep going ahead with it, you know. But Moses is not important immediately here. So Julius Miller sort of forced this project along, right? The Port Authority, as I said, they had no help with the railroads. They're like, all right, we'll do this. New York Tunnel Authority also assisted. Although I didn't write notes about this

because you had what's his name, Ole Singstad, trying to build the Holland Tunnel at this point. And that would hook up with Robert Moses's warrior. No, Robert Moses hated Ole Singstad. That's what a warrior is, I assume. Oh, a warrior. Excuse me. Yeah, right. I also heard warrior. Yeah, I heard warrior as well. It's that rotissism that I have or non-rotissism, whichever it is.

And Moses would come eventually to hate the Port Authority because Moses was in charge of all the authorities, except the Port Authority. But at this point, at this point, he's he's early in his career. He's built a couple of parkways in Long Island. And he's about to build Riverside Park and Riverside Drive. But anyway, Robert Moses origins. Yes, sick of these fucking origin stories, you know,

I already know who Robert Moses is. Just play the hits. But this is this is a Tammany Hall project. And it looks like it. So it's built before the Interstate Highway Act, well before the Interstate Highway Act. No one knows what an elevated highway is supposed to look like at this point, right? You know, what do you have to look at as an example? You have the Merritt Parkway that's being built simultaneously to this

or the Northern State Parkway in Long Island, right? No one knows what a highway should be. I love that foundation where they've clearly gone like, OK, it's an elevated train, we'll just do that. Yes, that that is basically how it was built. Are there different loads and stuff on a highway as opposed to a train track? Yes. OK. So but it's also it's also a Tammany Hall project.

So they have to figure out how to employ every kind of tradesman, right? Everyone out there, so including like stone masons and people like that, right? I see that. So, you know, you you have. Really cool details, really good, really good, like Art Deco details. Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is another Tammany Hall thing is that, like, OK, you get the job because you're someone's cousin and you get the job on the understanding that you're going to overcharge.

And then some of that goes to a guy and then some of that goes to another guy and you're going to vote for this third guy. But you inexplicably, really, still do a good job on the actual thing. That's not a feature of a lot of political corruption in general, I would say. So one of the big features on this roadway were center exits, right? The ramps on the highway were in the middle, right? That meant the inner lane was the slow lane, the outer lane was the fast lane. It seems disastrous.

But it meant it was a little bit cheaper to build the ramps, which were, you know, just straight up like, you know, it's just a two-lane road in the middle, right? Oh, I mean, I hate doing the fucking curved on and off ramps and in city skylines, too. So I get it. Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah, most of the slow lane is a horrible weave zone, of course, because these exits were so frequent, but it was a low speed limit. It was only a 35 mile an hour road, I want to say, right?

There were a whole bunch of S curves in it because it stayed entirely within the right of way of 11th Avenue, right? I'll show a pic of one of those, a picture of one of those S curves later. They're pretty crazy. Yeah. Another feature of this highway when it was built was Belgian blocks. And what is it? What? It is not paved with asphalt. It was paved with Belgian blocks.

What is a Belgian block? Belgian block is what Americans call cobblestone. Ah, OK. But your actual cobblestone is very rough stone. Belgian black is the much smoother like stone surface, right? I was going to say you're driving around and you're fucking like open top, Ford or whatever. You're making 25 miles an hour

and you're vibrating all of your teeth out of your jaw. Yes. So this highway was paved. Yeah, it was paved almost. It was paved entirely with Belgian block. It was not fully upgraded ever. So this was never a paved road. He's never a paved road. No. It's elevated unpaved road.

You know, we put a dirt track on a fucking bridge. Eat me. Sorry. So was it door and I had to chase them down and back. I think it could have been funnier. I mean, maybe maybe they could have done a wooden surface. That would have been funnier. No, I mean, I could I could see doing like a metal road even. Well, those those are still fairly common

unlike drop ridges and stuff. Yeah, that's true. Fuck you, motorcyclists. Follow your own barrel. But yeah, so it's it's it's all Belgian block. Oh, and Joey from. Yeah, somebody had to steal it. Yeah, someone had a Belgian block in action. Absolutely, to get some like cheap Belgian blocks.

And so. So it's so I know our guys from Belgium. Is that a country right now? I'm not sure. All the catering for the work crews on this is very heavy on the waffles. The little known Belgian mob, the Belgian mob. I don't see the bridge. That's a good movie. It fit him for some concrete clogs.

Yeah, they're all. They're all hanging out in a smoke filled room, drinking completely undrinkable beers. Do you like wild ale made with bird shit? That's all we have, but we have nine varieties of it. So unlike the subways, the elves, the skyscrapers, the ballparks and really everything else in New York in this era construction on this road was agonizingly slow

and it proceeded in fits and starts, right? It's weird. Like New York at this point is going up like that song powerhouse, right? Like the stuff is happening. And meanwhile, you just have one guy. One Belgian mobbed up guy painstakingly carving these stone blocks. So the southern section on a racist face. Yes. I mean, it was. Yeah.

They were starting the depression off, right? But the southern section went up first from Canal to 22nd Street. Then they built a disconnected northern section from 72nd to 59th in 1932. Then they extended the southern section north to 38th. And then I hold on. Let me figure this out. This is like very confusing because of the numbered streets. Yes, exactly.

That's a good system for the 46th of 1934. The 12th of a grid system in Glasgow, but the streets have names. Oh, street. Yeah. From 46 to 59th wasn't filled until 1937. And then they extended it a little bit farther south in 1939, right? And then, of course, Robert Moses finished the job. The southern section took a long time. The northern section that Robert Moses got funded with parks funding happened real quick.

Yeah, because he wasn't beholden to like Belgian organized crime interests. No, that's what happens when you're not you're not dead to bear upon racist space. He didn't put a bunch of fucking curlicues in there. It is truly a Robert Moses joint. It looks like all of his other shit. Yeah. Yeah. And the concept here was pretty simple. You know, you bury the railroad tracks, you renovate Riverside Park, which at this point was just a sort of a horrible swamp, right?

And then once you renovate the park, you run a highway through it, right? Good. New Yorkers don't deserve anything nice. Yeah. Uncritical support for Robert Moses, because people from New York don't deserve a nice thing. That is the position I'm taking here. There is some creative financing required. It's documented extensively in the power broker, including one of the things he did to get the highway built was

saying it was a park access road, right? Fascinating. And the park that it accessed was this swamp. Yes, which he fixed up. OK, you two can throw up at a trash can with the views of the river. Big chunk of a big chunk of the money came from. OK, so you see this is the 72nd Street Yards of the New York Central Railroad.

You can see the highway running over it. And this extended farther north, there was a bunch of railroad tracks running through Riverside Park, which was legally a park and practically not because it was full of New York Central Railroad. What he did is sort of. But part of this project was to bury the railroad. Although the yards stayed around for a long time. This was eventually bought by Donald Trump.

And that's the Riverside development is there now. But because he called it a park access road, he got a bunch of free works, progress, administration, labor, right? I love the WPA, like socialism. Will be accessed anywhere, but only for the worst people. Yeah, by means of scams. Yes. This project was twice as large financially or twice as expensive as the Hoover Dam. Jesus.

Added 83 acres of parks, a new crossing at the Sputon Dovele destruction of a couple hundred acres of Inwood Park, which was Manhattan's only Virgin Forest. That's a no great milestone. Yeah. Added conspicuously no new park land in Harlem. Um, yeah, but yeah. But for the rest of the island, lots of new park land. And the net result of this, once this was finished and funneling traffic down

into the West Side Elevated Highway was instant and horrible traffic. There are a lot of time savings that were supposed to happen. You some demand. Wow. How did that happen? Right, because this funneled into the once it crossed the Sputon Dovele that goes up into, I want to say the Sawmill Parkway. Or maybe it's not that one. It might be the other one, the one that goes sport towards.

Hold on. It was built at the same time. I'm going to look this up on the map real quick here. Hmm. Now, it's the Henry Huntsman Parkway, excuse me, not the Sawmill. Um, but it, uh, you know, it instantly overloaded the brand new West Side Elevated Highway, right? And, you know, so this was clearly a disaster because all of the expected

time savings failed to materialize. Like, you know, it helped no one and it hindered a lot of people. It did help more cars get into Manhattan. But once they got there, what are you going to do? And, but on the other hand, it was very expensive. It was very expensive. Yes. And it, but the press liked it and it inspired several other projects. You know, like, let's say, for instance, here we have the

the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey. You can see the center exits here. I hate it so much. I always loved, I love this thing, actually. It's one of my favorite structures. Every time I'm on the goddamn Pulaski Skyway, I just curse you by yourself, Roz. I've never been on the Pulaski Skyway. We have been on the Pulaski Skyway together.

No, we haven't. I'm pretty sure we have. When were you on the Pulaski Skyway? Memory. I maybe not. I feel like we have been. Was that not when we, when you got mad at us for going all the way around New York or is that a different time?

No, that was when we were on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Oh, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. And I almost killed you twice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My bad. That's fine. That's such a check in history of a Pulaski Skyway. I don't think you should drive on these things anymore. Well, this is a fun one about this. You can see this this ramp here that goes up into here.

I believe this is the Kearney ramp. And this was designed to serve the industry in that area. And once they built it, by the time they finished it, trucks were too heavy to make it up the ramp. But we've got an industry there. If you have a like a cute little K-van or whatever. Yeah, that would be nice. Another one, of course, is the Boston Central Artery.

Yeah, they they built that very shortly after seeing how great the West Side Elevated Highway was. And they, you know, they spent just just just over a decade trying to put it underground. That's another episode, though. But the big problem with the West Side Elevated Highway, shut the hell up. The big problem with the West Side Elevated Highway, of course,

is how vehicles changed while it was being built. Right. Yeah. You went from your open top ford that was shaking all of your teeth out of your gum. Yeah. To, you know, it's about first a slightly larger thing and then a larger thing than that and then a much larger thing. Yeah. So here's a here's a Ford model AA.

There's a common truck when this highway was built shortly after Rick is here. Shit. Yeah. Looks cool. Looks really cool. Shortly after it was being built. Here's the Ford model BB, right? A slightly larger. That's kept going with that naming scheme.

CCBD. Yeah, like an Excel spreadsheet. Yeah. Yeah. You two get a copy of the Protocols of the Elders' Eye on it, every glove box. So once they finish the thing, this is this is a 1940 Mac LH. Just a little bit bigger.

A little bit. See, it's it's carrying pie. That's Civic Intermountain Express. Yes. Yes. It's actually three times the axles. Yeah. And I miss when we all wore hats. I mean, I mean, you could bring it back.

You could start wearing a hat. No, no, no, no. When heterosexual men wear hats, I want to beat them unconscious with a nine iron. But when it was brand new, it could not handle this truck. Good. But then. But then the highway would stay around, you know, by the 1960s, we had things like this Mac F series here.

You know, the Cabover. So fucking good. Well, I like it. Yeah. Bring back a cab over truck. I think the thing is, right? Cab over and like cab behind engine trucks should. There's this stark divide where you only have cabovers in Europe and the opposite in the US.

I think we should switch like it's half time. I think we should give up our cabovers and go back to the like big, long scanners and you should get cabovers back and then be cool. Yeah, the American Caboers, they all look really good. Yeah, it's a great aesthetic. I think the drivers hate them, though. Yeah. Listen, if you can't have everything and sometimes horrible working conditions are the price you have to pay for design.

This is true. I mean, you know, and then you try and look at the engine and then you accidentally spill your coffee all over the windshield. Yeah, but I like it because, you know, that way, if you park it facing Mecca, then the truck is Muslim. Just like Neil Armstrong. That's right. Try and check the engine and your dog falls. Here's what I found.

Don't shut up. So, you know, these sort of tractor trailers, they weren't very common for a long time, but they were ubiquitous by the time the highway was finished and the highway couldn't handle them. It was built too lightly. This thing was basically obsolete when it was new, right? Yeah, and that was the only thing it was meant for, but instead it's just for car trail.

Whoa, OK, I see what you meant about the S curves. This is the cool less in highway form. Yes. Yeah. And everyone sort of knew. Did they not have enough polygons? Did they accidentally set it to like straight lines instead of curves? Well, well, at that time, manufacturing like a curved beam was not so easy.

So, yeah. Basically, yes, they didn't have that many polygons. You don't have enough polygons, no more pylons. So everyone knew that this highway was obsolete basically by the end of World War Two, right? But there was a lot of money available for new highways to the suburbs, fixing an inter in inner city highway. That's lame.

You don't want to getting into a sort of like urban decline sort of thing here. Right. Yeah. No one wants to fix the old obsolete highway. They want to build a new fancy highway, right? So Robert Moses, his plan was never implemented. So they would build a brand new highway by infilling all the space around the ops of my ears and they'd build the highway. Love the highway.

Yeah. Yeah, he loves the highway. Yeah, they would build a highway at the end of the piers, right? And this came to nothing, right? Nothing happened there. What they did for the best. What they did was half hearted attempts at modernization, right? Which mostly involve paving over the Belgian blocks. We finally got a paved road in the what?

Fifties, sixties, seventies. Fuck yeah. Yeah, the highway was never finished. It is. So when you're like, oh, we just ignored this for a while. I thought you meant for like five years, not 30. This is America, America. Even while they were building like the other huge New York City highways, they were just like, yeah, we'll get to this later.

We'll get there. Yeah. But the highway was functionally obsolete, right? It was built to standards well below that of normal interstate highways, which had been established at this point. And they were into that highway. Like no one knew what a highway was when they were making this thing. They were just going on vibes.

But now we standardized those. But by now, like the parkway that went through Riverside Park was funneling loads of traffic onto it, right? You know, they just sort of tried to widen it to six lanes. But in the corners, it was still two lanes, which is a terrible idea. Right. It was a congestion nightmare. Right. And it was a maintenance nightmare as well with the old fashioned steel structure.

Right. Now, you could see this is this is a picture from, I want to say, like the early 70s. This one is, I think from 1973, you can see one of the I think this is Cunard lines. Oh, cool. There. The terminal was not looking very good. I mean, you can this is the sort of era of New York history, where you can get some truly apocalyptic shots. Absolutely. Yeah. Holy shit.

But they they still are like, OK, we should probably at least pave this thing. We probably have the money to at least pave it. So they did that in the 70s, right? So on December 15th, 1973. Oh, no. A dump truck, which is one of the few trucks allowed on the highway. You know, I climbed up a ramp headed on up to the job site where they were paving the highway, right?

And this is a full size tractor trailer with 30 tons of asphalt. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. They should have had some kind of like heritage thing where you can only use a Ford A8 on the job site in this. You have to use the shitty little like comical horn and everything. Traveling northbound at reach an area between Gantsevoort Street. And the Dutch Little West 12th Street.

It's called Little West 12th Street because it's blocked off from the regular West 12th Street by a change in the grid. I thought it was like a sort of historical district of the West 12th Street immigrants. Oh, no, it was a piece of shit garbage area at the time. That's your brother. Go Phils. So I got to that area and it fell down. Oh, I hate when I fall over because my dump truck is too big.

Fell down through the highway onto the road below. It took an eight. It took 80 feet of roadway with it, as well as a sedan. Right. You need context. If you're a horrible, disgusting 30 New Yorker listening to this podcast that's right near the Whitney Museum of American Art at the end of the High Line right now.

Oh, fuck that. I am so fucking tired of the High Line. Well, this was the companion project to the High Line. Oh, oh, you made a park that nobody can go to because it's too fucking busy. That's too fucking hot. Oh, great. You did. Oh, your private island reaching. Oh, it's so great. Oh, I look at the park the only way people can go to. Oh, my God. It's amazing.

And the Knicks are going to turn it around this year. Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. Too crowded. So no one was injured. And that's a dead. It's not looking too good, though, I will say that. Yeah. You can see the cobblestones here.

This is this is a picture from like the mid 70s, I want to say. No one was injured. The construction company that owned the truck was found at fault. The construction truck company that owned the truck was then awarded a contract to clean up the site. No bid. Nice. But this was New York City in the 1970s. They were bankrupt. What are they going to do with the freeway? Leave it. The answer.

Yeah, they they they closed it and just left it there. I love when people do that shit, man. I'm like, we just leave shit there. They couldn't repair. It's just so fucking arrogant. Like, yeah. They couldn't repair it. They couldn't demolish it.

So it just sat there for like a decade. How many holes? Ozymandias. Yes. And it was close to cars. Look all my works, you money and try not to breathe in the air too much. It was close to cars, but not to pedestrians. Anyone could get up there.

And a lot of people did. It was sort of the high line before the high line, which. Well, I mean, New York in the 70s, if you had closed it to pedestrians, it would not be closed to pedestrians, right? This is true. Functionally, anyone could still get up there. Well, the other thing is when when they built it, there was a sidewalk on it. They didn't know pedestrians wouldn't want to go on an elevated highway sidewalk.

Yeah, they didn't know they would be cowards. This is true. This is true. Another thing, of course, is the high line at this point still had trains running on it. I think the last customer on that shut down in the like 1980. Yeah, you could still use it as a park, but you had to be really fast. Yeah. Yeah. And if anyone's not making the connection, the high line was the sister project to this that the New York Central elevated their tracks on 10th Avenue.

So all of a sudden, of course, there was horrible chaos as, you know, there was a huge amount of traffic increase on 11th Avenue, which actually there wasn't like people didn't. Once the highway was not there, people just didn't drive there anymore. Right. Yeah. Sort of the opposite of induced demand reduced demand. And crazy how that works. Yeah. Give me one second.

I'll be right back. So what we're saying is the gas should be twenty dollars a gallon. I mean, I just saw something that basically like in the last quarter, truck sales, at least for Ford went up like 25 percent. An SUV sales rose. There's like it doesn't matter what gas costs. Like Americans, a bunch of others still going to pay it. And like, I will say like that.

That's sort of a two part problem where, you know, for a lot of the country, the infrastructure for like electric cars sucks and electric cars also aren't the answer. But, you know, I think all these manufacturers switched away from like making meaningfully small car. Oh, yeah. I don't even know how many there are today on the market. I'm well, that's that's the thing. Like you may be aware that this sort of British action, the tire extinguishes. Yes, yes, have spread to the United States.

Yeah, of deflating the tires of like large SUVs, you know, low mileage cars, luxury vehicles. And it's like, I'm not sure that you can get a non electric high mileage car in the US easily, right? I mean, it kind of depends on what you mean by high mileage. Like, you know, I'm looking right now. Nissan will sell you a Versa, which is, you know, their their entry level car. Or 15,380 starting MSRP and it can get up to 3240 MPG.

And then it just it's because like the I think Toyota has the right idea in that at least for their minivan, the Sienna, it's mandatory hybrid. Sure. Yeah. But like that's expensive to develop and car manufacturers don't want to do it. And I, you know. It's like sort of culturally ingrained now. Like a big car is like popular. Right. And like that's the thing is people will make all sorts of excuses for them.

I don't know how the Ford F-150 Lightning is selling. Joe Biden drove it that one time. So that's, you know, that's given it the cool factor. Ford will sell you a Maverick with a hybrid. The hybrid is standard in the Maverick. That's a great idea. I just like if you quote need to pick up, you can get away with at least you get the dumb ass Rivian with the like motors and the wheels. Yeah, but it makes 845 horsepower.

The motors and the wheels are the most logical place to put them. That's how it works on trains. So therefore, they're for an off-road truck. Well, it's not off-road Alice. It's a pavement princess. Yeah. That's what it is. Definitely is fucking lying. Yeah, that's like, I don't know, a Land Cruiser, which they won't sell us anymore.

Where are we? It's been car talk. Sorry, automotive conversation is what I'm saying. All right. So the sideways, it's busted, right? Yeah, it's an ISO. Did you say it's a button? Yeah, it's a button.

It's a button, I know it's not a button because there's no buses. Buses can use it. Yeah, it's a sign of like urban decline and urban decay and blight and assisted government that's like given up. So the first reaction here is, all right, how do we replace it? Right. Hmm. So no, absolutely not. There was this very ambitious replacement idea

sort of along the lines of Robert Moses's idea to because Robert Moses by this time doesn't have very much influence. But along the lines of Moses's vision to run a highway along the end of the pier, it was called Westway, right? And it'd be a fully underground freeway that we built on landfill twelve hundred feet out from the existing edge of Manhattan. Right. Oh, genius. And this was back when it was relatively easy to get federal highway

administration money, right? So the the Federal Highway Administration designated the corridor between the Lincoln Tunnel and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel as I-478 assuring 90 percent federal funding, right? Good for that. Yeah. Planning began before 1973, but there was a new sense of urgency after the collapse, right? So this ran through no less than three presidential administrations,

all of whom were very enthusiastic about it, right? Nixon wanted to go forward, Ford wanted to go forward. And of course, Reagan wanted the project to go forward. There were some other people who thought it was a bad idea, but they didn't count, right? And this doesn't exist now, right? So it didn't get built. Yes. OK. The Army Corps of Engineers approved the permit for landfill, right?

Because you need to go through the Army Corps of Engineers if you're going to alter a coastline. The EPA did not contest it because they thought Reagan would veto their veto, right? Wait, why would they have vetoed it? What? Is this why we have a fish, a horrible fish on the screen? This is why we have a horrible fish on the screen. Yes. Would it make the fish sad? It would make the fish sad.

Go ahead. That fish has been living off the peers of Manhattan for as long as it's been evolved. I don't think you can kill it with a highway. Oh, I can sure fucking try. Well, the project was funded with federal funny money, so it was almost assuredly going forward. In fact, President Reagan traveled to New York in September 1981, which pointed derelict highway was partially demolished.

He traveled to New York in September 1981 to announce the Westway project begins today. Fire the nose. No tear up this wall. Tear up this wall. So Judge Thomas P. Grissey, right? He had some different ideas. He was he was a Nixon appointee, but he was also a Manhattan resident, right? Because this is back when people could afford to live there, right?

So in January 1982, he called the Army Corps of Engineers Bluff, noting that by the standard set down by the EPA, their environmental impact statement was complete bullshit. And Westway would have a significant impact on the Manhattan striped bass habitat. Does anyone like OK. Is Manhattan particularly famous for striped bass? Are these striped bass any different from simply do not worry about it? Don't worry about it.

I mean, you can't eat them. They're probably till full of mercury and other horrible things. Yeah, you can look at them. So I guess you can look at it and I mean, looking at one here, who wouldn't want to do that? The environmental impact statement had to be conducted a second time, taking a full two years. But Governor Mario Cuomo.

Oh, boy, somehow managed to convince the Army Corps of Engineers that they could do it in one year, which they did. Right. And a year of looking at this fish. Yes. It was particularly important to look at it during two winters, I believe, is the thing in the meantime, there was a bunch of opposition to Westway that sort of grew was like, you know, sort of your grass rid stuff in the area, right? But all the politicians, they wanted, you know,

you couldn't turn down this amount of federal funny money, right? Sure. Sure. Once you got this amount of free money, you got to do something with it. And we're talking as diverse character is as, of course, Governor Mario Cuomo, Mayor Ed Koch. Koch. Koch. Is it Koch? Koch. It's Koch.

Mayor Ed Koch. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They're all in favor of this project. They want to get this thing going, right? And Judge Grisa. Real fucking worth. Yeah, nightmare, blunt rotation. Next time. Judge Grisa gets the expedited environmental impact statement

from the Army Corps of Engineers, and he said, this is bullshit. You need to take two years to do the study and extends his injunction indefinitely. And the appeals, the appeals go nowhere, right? September of 1985, the Manhattan section of I-478 was stricken from the interstate highway system. West, Westway was dead thanks to striped bass. Judicial activism. And one judicial activist.

One judicial activist. Yeah. One cantankerous federal judge. They don't want this highway here sometimes. Fuck you. Take the subway like everybody else. He likes to go down to the end of the pier and feed the bass, I guess. And the funding was diverted to tearing down the old freeway to mass transit, which is good, although I don't know exactly what it went to. And construction began in 1996 on a replacement boulevard.

Right. I'm doing air quotes there on boulevard. Later, Chris, isn't a boulevard meant to have a sidewalk? Oh, my God, it's so bad. It's like really, really bad. Every time I've been up here, I've been like, this is this. This is how how do you people live like this? This is like Floridian in terms of its infrastructure. This is true.

So the replacement boulevard later christened the Joe DiMaggio highway by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Oh, fuck the Yankees. So it's still a horrible car sewer. It's impossible to cross on foot like you can do it, but it's very difficult. New Yorkers are still denied a pleasant waterfront to this. I think that would that would always be a stretch, but they're denied a waterfront. Yeah. Good.

And this has become the model for freeway tear downs across the country. Such as, you know, because we're scared of reducing car capacity. So here's here's the Alaskan Way in Seattle. We've got the Embarcadero San Francisco and the romantically named John F. Fitzgerald surface road in Boston. There she is. That's one of the names that like it's stop names when Lisa Simpson stays on the bus too long.

There she is. Roader of my life. Well, what did we learn? Well, we're terrified of ever doing anything like sunk cost fallacy, both for trains for barges, but most of all for cars and trucks. All of New York. Mm hmm. Well, I mean, listen, the climate's going to do it. The climate's going to do it for you.

That's true. New York will be returned. Listen, you can't say New York has denied a pleasant waterfront without being aware of the fact that it's going to get one, whether it wants it or not. This is true. This is true. You have to get a bunch of waterfront property on the like fifth floor. I'm yeah, I'm feeling pretty good here up at elevation plus 80 feet. And I guess, you know,

Tammany Hall, not great in the long run, although surprisingly idiosyncratic for its political corruption. I like the good things Tammany Hall did, but not the bad things. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, that's the that's the basic radical support. Critical support for boss tweed. Yes, in a struggle against against the more corruption. Yeah, against no more corruption.

Well, we have a segment on the spot cast called. Is this going to be the right drop safety third? No, I had a 50 50 chance here. I know it's on this other button. Hello, Justin, Alice and Liam and guest. Question, question, question. We're at the seas. Got it wrong.

Thank you. I hope you all are well. And the subject of today's pod wasn't too depressing or existentially soul crushing. Hey, no one died. We're doing amazing. Yeah, that's probably probably from lead poisoning.

From more than us from all the no one died, except for all of the kids like a big, big demographic things from having too many cars. Yeah. I now died approximately. I bet someone was killed building the original highway. I don't think they kept those things. Yeah, they were they were Italian. It doesn't matter.

More Jewish or Chinese. Or Irish or Irish. We haven't forgotten Duffy's cut, you motherfuckers. I don't think they would have had too many Chinese migrants. Oh, I guess. Yeah, yeah. No, Tammany Hall didn't like those guys. They were very specific and some of the bad things that Tammany were the first slave.

OK. Anyway, I hope you all are well. And the subject of today's pod wasn't too depressing or existentially soul crushing. I want to share a story of blatant management disregard for worker safety. This comes from a brief stint where I worked as a production supervisor in a small cannery.

Ah, let me explain first a little about the process at this cannery. You take the stuff, you put it on a can, you seal the can. Yes, we made canned pet food. We made canned pet food pate out of meats, grains and vegetables. You have pet food. Pet food. These were loaded into way bins and onto scales by a crew of four to five workers. We called this ingredient loading area the meat deck. I would not enjoy working on the meat deck.

I like meat. Meats delicious. Sorry to all the vegetarians listening listening. Anyway, we have to work on the meat deck. Yeah, I'm up on the meat deck. We called this ingredient loading area the meat deck as the crew spent most of their time loading 50 pound blocks of frozen meat onto a belt that fed a crusher and grinder. Some materials came in 2000 pound totes that we could load in using a hoist.

But many ingredients only came in 50 pound bags, which we had to be loaded by hand. Right. Yeah, like, you know, reconstituted circus animals or whatever. Exactly. It's a horse meat with traces of jockey meat. As you could probably imagine, this was difficult and sometimes unsafe work. The meat deck crew worked 12 hour shifts. I really wish it was a week deck. How bad do you want to meet that crew T shirt? I want the meat deck T shirt. Yeah, that'd be good.

We were frequently short staffed. Go figure. So some of the meat deck crew. You're really going to say it like that every time. I just get on board, I guess. Some of the meat deck crew would pick up extra over time days and end up working five or sometimes six 12 hour shifts in a week. On top of this, because it was such a crappy area to work, turnover was very high.

And most of the workers in the area were temps who had been there less than a month and only received a couple hours of safety training before starting work. The meat deck was where fucking Jesus. Was where most of our minor injuries occurred, as people would really drop frozen meat blocks on their hands. I hate this podcast. I'm fucking hot, dude. I'm picturing a perfect Minecraft block.

You. Yeah, yeah. He just won. One permain of. Meed to know that you drove to this. Cubic meter of meat. Is that? Oh, my God. I just thought it was funny.

Yeah. OK, get together, get together. Tell us about the meat. That. We also had a lot of strain and exertion injuries. Yeah. For the meat. For the meat.

For the block of meat. I put nine steaks in the craft craft. Exhaust. Meat craft. It just it has the texture of just like raw steak just on each side. It's. Oh, God. The incident I wanted to talk about concerns, one of the scale bins shown in the attached pictures.

Are these this thing top left? Yes. That day, we were making a recipe that called for dried sweet potato powder. I don't want that. That's not from the meat deck. That's for the veg deck. That's not for the veg deck. That's just from the powder deck.

This came in the powder deck. This came in 50 pound bags, not in the larger totes. Usually, these were easy enough to load. But for some reason, the lot we were using that day was hard and clumped. Mood, typically to load the bags into the bin. They would cut through the side of the bag and pour it through a grate into the scale bin. The clumped powder wouldn't pass through the grate, so the meat deck crew. OK, we really do need a meat deck crew to show.

The meat's the most I've heard you laugh in a minute. The meat deck crew started banging the open bags against the grating to break up the clumps and pass them through. You're going to de-clumps this shit. Unsurprisingly, after a few hours, one of the grating bars broke off and fell into the bin. At the time, I was in a different area of the plant, but my boss, the plant operation manager, happened to be doing a walk through the meat deck when the bar broke.

Well, I mean, this is fine. It's like dog food, but it's like oops, all metal. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. It's extra iron content. It's good for your blood. It's good roughage. Yeah. After the meat deck workers pulled the cover off the bin, they could see that the bar was sitting near the bottom of the nearly empty bin. The operations manager told the guy would knock the bar into the bin

to put up, put on a pair of coveralls and shoe covers so as to not contaminate the ingredients and climb in after it. Yeah, go in after it. Yeah, we'll do that. You can't like hook it out or something. Well, I don't know. I think he just wants to punish the guy. Yeah. Now, these bins are about nine feet tall with completely smooth inside walls and are emptied by a 14 inch diameter auger at the bottom.

Yeah, once you get in, just all get yourself out. In order to stand in the bin, the guy who my boss tried to send in would have to have to stand in the powder with the in the bin with his feet touching the auger. Nope. How my boss was planning on getting him out. Once he grabbed the bar, I have no idea. I mean, keep in mind, it's a dog food factory. You know, you can do something about it.

Yeah, read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Yeah, for more meat deck facts. Thankfully, the QA Tech on shift saw what was going on and stopped the meat deck guy as he was about to climb in the bin. Wait, he was going to do it. He was going to do it. He didn't. OK. Rather than realizing the inherent danger in his plan, the operations manager started yelling at her,

saying things like, I don't have time to wait around. The line is down and I don't care how we have to get that bar out of that bin. Oh, classic management. Yes. By that point, I had heard of the on the radio, what was going on. And I showed up with one of the planned mechanics. The mechanic and I locked out the screw at the bottom of the bin. Wait, they hadn't done that before that. They tried to send him into it.

Of course. Now, why would you do that? Hmm. And then the mechanic used a broom to fish out the bar about five minutes later, something no one else had apparently thought to try first. Now, we got to mangle a guy. We got to put a guy through an auger. Yeah. So OK. It's OK. He's he was wearing a clean suit, though.

Yeah. Thankfully, the company actually took some action after this all happened. They fired the operations manager who tried to make the guy climb down into the bin. I moved to a different department in the company where the safety culture was better. And I was able to stop being a supervisor and a cannery where this all happened shut down not too long afterwards, but for completely unrelated reasons.

You know, it was an access on the veg deck. Yes. Solidarity. All get a guy on that shit. Solidarity from an ex supervisor, Tyler. And thank you, Tyler. Thank you, Tyler. For informing us. Very nearly killing Justin. Informing us of the meat deck. It's been safe. Safety there.

Next episode, the Boston molasses disaster, the last disaster. Yes. And how many commercials? No, no, I don't know. I don't know. You know, you know, all of our shit is, you know, all our crap. Subscribe, subscribe to the fucking YouTube thing. Because I want to play on the plaque.

Come on, come on, come on. My official, whether it's your problem, Minecraft meat deck server. Yeah, coming soon. That and the meat deck crew shirt, which is just going to be like stencil for meat deck crew. White on black on the meat deck. Well, bye, everyone. Bye everybody.