February 22, 2008
Lafayette and Spring, Temporarily Out of Commission
At the southeast corner of Lafayette and Spring in the SoHo-Nolita area, some sort of event (explosion?) occurred to knock off the heavy grates off the surface. The FDNY and NYPD closed down the street; it didn't look like a steampipe explosion or water main break (no water) - it looks more like an underground transformer vault (if anyone knows what these are, let us know in comments) explosion. The 6 line does run underneath, but there do not seem to be any delays.
Some of the bystanders speculated the snow and salt could have played a part in the explosion. And since this is the first substantive snow, that means possible electrocutions (dogs seem especially susceptible), though Con Ed has been working more aggressively to check stray voltage.
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I think the DOT will be putting metal grates over these, once they are removed. I'm not sure if they belong to Con Ed or the MTA.
An underground transformer vault is exactly what it sounds like. Transformers change the voltage of electricity. Con Ed's big feeder cables use massively high voltage that has to be stepped down to 110 volts for household use, so they have these vaults all over the city.
Wifey heard an explosion a few hours ago from our apt. on nearby Cleveland Place. Water and electric still flowing in our flat.
those are some big t472 high voltage nanospectorators.
My neighbourhood!
Great photo...
I work nearby. The streets are closed from Broadway to Spring, but they're open on Lafayette... go figure...
ConEd is working there. I'm not sure if it was wise of me to wander around, with the water and the "electricity"...
I did hear something like an explosion before, but who knows....
Transformer fires and explosions are common all over the city after a heavy snowfall or rain. The snow combined with the salt will get into the transformers and short them out or cause surges.
Wet + Salt + ConEd - "maintenance" = big problem
salt is a killer! man, that's my neighborhood too. I wonder who goes to parasuco and buys their tacky 500 dollar bedazzled hot glue jeans? how do they stay in business?
I don't know, but that store across the street with the "1840" sign partially visible in the picture used to be a great place to buy home brewing supplies. But I think they stopped selling hops and yeast out of there long ago.
somebody get the ball-bearings and gauze tape.
It looks like there are coffins buried under New York and they're coming to the surface.
I'm guessing that when they built the city, they moved the headstones out of the way but they left the bodies there, so the spirits of the desecrated Indian remains are now angry. It's your basic poltergeist logic. Obvious, really.
Also, the 4, 5 and 6 trains go beneath that. I don't know why they're still running....
Did somebody called the MTA and told them?...
Spoke to my friend who works at Parasuco. She said that all is fine. FDNY let the store stay open. She told me that there was actually some smoke, then a fire, rumbling and finally an explosion. FDNY told them it had to do with the salt. No damage to Parasuco but they probably have thick walls there. A bank use to be housed in there with a giant vault. Nobody even mentioned that it happend down the block from LVHRD headquarters (former lvhrd headquarters?).
What the hell is LVHRD?
More details: Manhattan feeder cables send electricity from area substations at 13000 volts to the various neighborhoods, where underground network transformers step it down to household 120/240 volts. Network transformers are usually smaller than a van and bigger than a refrigerator, but it depends on the KVA capacity. They look like this.
Transformers are filled with oil as an insulator and coolant, and if they corrode excessively or suffer some other failure, they can burn or explode. See, e.g., this example from 2005.
Anyway, NYC's transformers are generally one of the more reliable parts of the network (considering there are tens of thousands of them), and getting better as older ones are aggressively replaced. And the above posters are correct that melting salted snow sometimes causes failures as it pushes partially corroded transformers over the edge.
An EVENT? Umm... Cloverfield, anyone?