ECS is the tag of the NYC punk band 'East Coast Scammers'. It is tagged on the floor al over the East Village.

The link to "DigSafelyNewYork" was interesting, but note that the site says:

"serves the entire state of New York outside of Long Island and New York City"

The link to "DigSafelyNewYork" was interesting, but note that the site says:

"serves the entire state of New York outside of Long Island and New York City"

another link to mirrow edEx's:

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/health/question_week/what_does_the_neon_66527.asp

A simple and quick search and google revealed this website: http://www.digsafelynewyork.com/

You're all wrong. The above mystical street runes predict the birth of Nostradamus in 1503, the end of WW2 in 1945 and the arrest, trial and eventual extradition to serve life imprisonment in Iraq, of former president George W. Bush in 2009.

Of course, they're hardly ever right.

Back in the days before 311, there used to be an office called One Call Center...call these guys, tell them where you're planning to work, and they'd do what was described above as far as getting the appropriate utilities to mark up the street.

I used this for an interesting purpose some years ago...we were doing a lot of special effects stuff for a big movie that involved dropping and crushing vehicles on NYC streets...I would call these guys to mark up our prospective locations to make sure we hadn't picked too sensitive a spot (or at least know who we needed to call to get permission).

What impressed me then is that if you know anything about how complex and tangled the physical and beauracratic workings of NYC utilities and services are, the fact that one phone number could effectively decode years, decades, of city infrastructure was nothing short of a miracle...

Gothamist clearly enjoys a knowledgeable readership. As noted, each company uses a distinctive color to mark its lines -- and, by the way, mark its repaired excavations.

Any contractor planning to dig in city streets is required to submit specific plans to the City (calling 311 can suffice for a simple job). The address information is sent to all companies with underground lines, who have (I believe) 15 days to mark them on the pavement. If they don't mark them, they can't sue the contractor who damages them by accident.

Sometimes the "code" is open. Especially in Lower Manhattan, you may see a notation, "Shallow trench. Hand excavate only." In these places, the underground world is so crowded that digging is a delicate proposition.

I've always thought ECS was for

Electric, Communication and Steam.

learn something new everyday.

What was said before is correct, but some clarifications. The Empire City Subway Company only is in Manhattan, while in the outer boroughs you see Bell System covers on the Verizon manholes. The reason behind the Empire City Subway and ConEd's Consolidated Telegraph & Electrical Subway Company is because all wires in Manhattan had to be undergound - a result of legislation passed after the blizzard of 1888.

Now if you look at manholes, sometimes you will see a spot of the paint on the cover and arrows running from it showing that, for example a ConEd line is running under the street at that point instead of putting an abreviation like "RCN" on the pavement.

RCN I take to be, um, RCN, the phone company. ECS, which you can barely see there because it's pretty sloppy (although clearer and upside down in the background), is Empire Subway Company, Verizon's Manhattan underground construction company. I think ECS is the most common one you see, mostly because (I think) the phone lines are nearer to the surface than the gas and electric.

Although not always a rule, typically red markings indicate underground electric, orange = communications, yellow = gas, blue = water, white = misc.

The local utilities are required to mark the street up before any kind of excavation takes place.

There's definately going to be some heavy construction at the location shown.