under the streets part III

Most of the streets of my neighborhood have been in various stages of reconstruction for some months, which is sometimes fascinating. I've already discussed the bricks under Fourth Avenue. The other day I was walking to work (I usually get distracted by something or other when walking to work) and stopped on Second Avenue to watch them digging up the street. I had seen a pile of timbers there the day before and was curious about them. That morning I got to watch the guy with the backhoe carefully picking these timbers out of old concrete deep in the street bed. The Merlino Construction foreman came over to talk to me (I was taking photos) and told me that these were streetcar crossties put down before the turn of the last century, and that you could tell because they were untreated heart of cedar. We both commented on how they were taking these old remnants out now, while we are building new streetcar tracks elsewhere. It was a fabulous reveal of a moment in history. I hope the First Avenue streetcar passes and gets built soon.