MANHOLE FIRE

November 13

40th Street and Ninth Avenue
Firefighters cordoned off a half block radius while smoke billowed from a steel manhole cover on Ninth Avenue outside Port Authority Bus Terminal. The fire started at approx. 8.00 a.m. Tuesday morning as he bus station spilled its humanity onto the street.

New Yorkers are used to seeing smoke rising from all sorts of holes in the ground as they scurry back and forth to work. This fire was no real exception, although it could have been. You see there are two worlds that separate New York City, the subway below, and the streets above. In winter, grey steam clouds rise from the underground, as the hot air from below ground meets the cold air above. In winter orange and white chimney cones resembling the cat’s striped hat in Dr. Seuss ‘Cat in the Hat’, appear all over the streets of Manhattan allowing the steam from the nether world below ground to vent its frustration at the living world above ground. Manhole fires are quite common in Manhattan, as last nights rainwater collides with the worn, poorly insulated power cables that run up and down the streets and avenues of this city. However, they can be deadly. Fire crews will not touch a smoking manhole, until they are sure Con Edison has cut off all power.

On July 19, a manhole cover exploded in midtown Manhattan killing one person and injuring dozens of others as they made their way home from work. The explosion was so loud, officer workers heard it streets away. That explosion received both national and international attention, a by-product of September 11. Hell, on February 15, a dog called Bob, was electrocuted walking over an icy manhole. Bob also died.