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For this week’s cover story, we go deep beneath Second Avenue with the sandhogs:
The history of the New York City sandhogs dates back to the 1870s and the sinking of the caissons for the Brooklyn Bridge. Local 147 was formed some 30 years later, in 1906, and has been integral to every subterranean public-works project since. Subways, car and water tunnels, sewers—you name it, they’ve dug it. Yet in all that time, the sandhogs have never experienced a bonanza of work such as that of the past few years.
