Meet a Sandhog

The following report from the work site was prepared by Paula Rogovin's 1st Grade class at The Manhattan New School (P.S. 290).

Her class has been studying the construction of the Second Avenue subway.



Courtesy of D'Laine Mindreau
4/30/10

Most Friday mornings our first grade class from The Manhattan New School (P.S. 290) does observations at the 2nd Avenue Subway construction site.

We love to learn from the workers. We love the gigantic cranes and the excavators, and especially the tunnel boring machine.

On Friday April 30th, we saw a construction worker with a hardhat with the word “Sandhog” handwritten on it. We wondered what that meant, so we asked him. We were so lucky, because we got to interview a real “sandhog” – Pat Barr.
He was standing at the launch box where workers were lowering the motors for the TBM.
Pat had a huge smile on his face when he said that 4 generations from his family - his grandfather, his father, himself, and his 27 year old son - were “sandhogs.” He loves his work digging tunnels.
Did you know that only tunnel workers in New York City and Boston call themselves "sandhogs?” That’s what Pat said.
Pat is the worker on the left in the photo above.


This is the mural that we made of Pat. We hope that we can give it to him when we visit the launch box on Friday.


And this is our class !