Dirt Still Being Excavated Uptown

The city is still trying to figure out what happened to the Washington Heights retaining wall that collapsed Thursday afternoon as they hope to get most of it cleaned up by the Monday morning commute, however unlikely that may be. It turns out that Castle Village residents had complained for many years about the wall's instability, seeing small rocks fall from it. Mayor Bloomberg says the city will not be paying for repairs and cleanup, since the wall is private property - Castle Village's - and because the city doesn't "have the money" to pay for repairs to "every private piece of property." The city is demolishing other unstable parts of the wall. Many experts say that the methods used in 1908 to build the wall were not up to modern standards - plus a wall that high would never be built today. What should be interesting to see today and tomorrow is the big tarp they plan to put over the dirtslide, in anticipation of rain - it'll be like a modern art installation.

Photograph from wolfey's Flickr photostream - many thanks