Sandhog is the slang term given to urban

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face; cutting, blasting ...

s and construction workers who work underground on a variety of excavation projects in New York City, and later other cities. Generally these projects involve tunneling, caisson excavation, road building, or some other type of underground construction or mining projects. The miners work with a variety of tools including using tunnel boring machines and

explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

to remove material for the project they are building. The term sandhog is an American

colloquialism Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...

. Starting with their first job in 1872, the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/ suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East Rive ...

, the "hogs" have built a large part of the New York City infrastructure including the subway tunnels and sewers, Water Tunnels No. 1 and No. 2 as well as the currently under construction Water Tunnel No. 3, the Lincoln,

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former Provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...

, Queens-Midtown, and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels. In addition, they worked on the foundations for most of the bridges and many of the skyscrapers in the city. Traditionally, these workers have been Irish or Irish American. Some

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

s are now sandhogs. Sandhogging is often a tradition and is passed down through generations of families; since mining projects span decades, it is not uncommon for multi-generations of families to work together on the same job.

Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...

was a rare exception in the 1950s, as a recently-arrived to New York individual, who worked as a Sandhog relatively briefly on the third tube of the

Lincoln Tunnel The Lincoln Tunnel is an approximately tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey, to the west with Midtown Manhattan in New York City to the east. It carries New Jersey Route 495 on the New Jersey side and unsigned Ne ...

Appearances in media

*In the October 1997 issue of ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'' magazine, a series of photographs by David Allee, with a text accompaniment by Thomas Kelly, document the life and work of sandhogs. In 2006 at

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

in New York City there was a large-scale photo and video installation about the sandhogs, "The Sandhog Project", created by artist Gina LeVay. *Thomas Kelly's 1997 novel about sandhogs, ''Payback'', was reissued in 2008 as ''Sandhogs'' () by Soft Skull Press. * David Grann's 2003 article about sandhogs, ''City of Water'', appeared in the September 1 issue of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and was republished in his collection '' The Devil and Sherlock Holmes''. It has been optioned for a movie. *On September 7, 2008, The History Channel began "Sandhogs" a series on the sandhogs. * The ''

CSI: NY ''CSI: NY'' (''Crime Scene Investigation: New York'', stylized as ''CSI: NY/Crime Scene Investigation'') is an American police procedural television series that ran on CBS from September 22, 2004, to February 22, 2013, for a total of nine season ...

'' episode "A Man a Mile" deals with the death of a sandhog during construction of Water Tunnel No. 3. *The '' Cold Case'' episode "Sandhogs" ( Season 4, Episode 3) deals with the death of a Sandhog in 1948. *A ''

Public Broadcasting System The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

'' (PBS) sponsored documentary show '' American Experience'' 2014 episode "The Rise and Fall of Penn Station" details the work done by the sandhogs in the creation of the rail tunnels connecting New York and New Jersey. *The podcast '' 99% Invisible'' released an episode on sandhogs in March 2015. *Chuck Wendig's urban fantasy novel, The Blue Blazes (). The protagonist is a former sandhog, and one of the central elements of the plot is Water Tunnel No. 3, a sandhog construction project. *The final episode of season 4 of

The Strain ''The Strain'' is a 2009 vampire horror novel by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. It is the first installment in ''The Strain Trilogy'', and was followed by '' The Fall'' (2010) and ''The Night Eternal'' (2011). Plot synopsis A Boeing 777 ...

refers to sandhogs as the builders of Water Tunnel No. 3, where the scenes were filmed. *

Scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always en ...

Season 3 Episode 14, where Walter refers to the workers as mole rats, as he felt the sandhogs nickname 'is illogical', and Toby corrects him to sandhogs.
Scorpion s03e14 Episode Script * On September 12, 1956, NBC's Screen Directors Playhouse aired the final episode of the program, a teleplay directed by

Allan Dwan Allan Dwan (born Joseph Aloysius Dwan; April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter. Early life Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan, wa ...

and starring William Bendix and Dennis Harper. The title alludes to the high air pressure necessary to keep the river from flooding the work site. The episode tells the story of a father and son working as "Sandhoggers" constructing a tunnel below the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...

Literature

* Colum McCann's "This Side of Brightness," Picador, New York 1998, . * Jimmy Breslin "Table Money," Tickner & Fields, New York 1986, . *

E. L. Doctorow Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction. He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama. They included ...

's "

Ragtime (novel) ''Ragtime'' is a novel by E. L. Doctorow, published in 1975. It is a work of historical fiction mainly set in the New York City area from 1902 until 1912. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Ragtime'' number 86 on its list of the 100 best E ...

": Chapter 13, Random House, 1975,

Movies

* In the 1943 romantic comedy '' No Time for Love'', photographer Claudette Colbert is on assignment to take pictures of a tunnel project under the Hudson River and falls for sandhog

Fred MacMurray Frederick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films and a successful television series, in a career that spanned nearly a half-century. His career as a major film le ...

. * In the 1996 film ''

Daylight Daylight is the combination of all direct and indirect sunlight during the daytime. This includes direct sunlight, diffuse sky radiation, and (often) both of these reflected by Earth and terrestrial objects, like landforms and buildings. Sunligh ...

'', directed by

Rob Cohen Rob Cohen (born March 12, 1949) is an American director and producer of film and television. Beginning his career as an executive producer at 20th Century Fox, Cohen produced and developed numerous high-profile film and television programs, inc ...

and starring

Sylvester Stallone Sylvester Enzio Stallone (; born Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, ) is an American actor and filmmaker. After his beginnings as a struggling actor for a number of years upon arriving to New York City in 1969 and later Hollywood in 1974, h ...

, there are references to "sandhogs" as well as detailed history on how these men lived under the pressures of building the Holland Tunne

*In 2006 film '' Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York'', directed by Robert Lee and starring Pascale Hutton, there is reference to "sandhog" when Hutton says that she is one

* In 2007 Edward Burns also narrated the fil
The Greatest Tunnel Ever Built
for The History Channel.

References

External links

{{Wiktionary
New York City Sandhogs Local 147
a New York Times interactive feature Construction trades workers People in mining

Appearances in media

Literature

Movies

References

Further reading

External links