Municipal Projects: New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut

A variety of municipal projects have been successfully completed by HPI, including:

• Installations of combined storm/sewer piping required field investigations in the roadbeds of Staten Island, New York City, in a Historic District in Litchfield, Connecticut, and in the Sherwood Island State Park, Westport, Connecticut.

• Replacement of the bascule-lift Mantoloking Bridge at Barnegat Bay, a project on the intra coastal waterway with the Ocean County Engineering offices in Toms River, NJ involved an evaluation of the historic bridge span and potential impacts of proposed bridge and ramps on a historic district.

• Evaluation of alternative locations and the subsequent construction of the Croton Water Treatment Plant in the Bronx entailed sensitivity assessments and field testing.

• Bulkhead improvements along the East River in the Fulton-Empire Stores New York State Park at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge required on-site monitoring.

Proposed construction of a Staten Island Criminal Court and Family Court Complex underwent a series of city, state, and federal environmental reviews. HPI performed the documentary research on the archaeological and historic resource potential of the urban site, only blocks from the Staten Island ferry.

As part of New York City’s proposed pressurization of the Catskill Aqueduct, water supply features at the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County were analyzed by HPI. The HPI report, Cultural Resource Assessment, Catskill Aqueduct Pressurization, Kensico Reservoir And Taconic State Parkway Work Sites, identified two large aerators, built in the early 20th century as potentially significant resources. The above photograph is a 1939 perspective of the Aerator No. 2 from the archives of the Board of Water Supply; the photograph below is one of a series of photographs taken by HPI for the photographic documentation package requested by the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The NYC DOT will replace the Willis Avenue Bridge, which connects the north of Manhattan with the south end of Willis Ave. in the Bronx. A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the NY SHPO and the Federal Highway Administration established the 1901 Bridge as a significant structure, eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
The MOA stipulates several mitigation actions, including:

    • An archaeological evaluation of the new touchdown impact zones
    • A search for alternative uses of the bridge trusses and,
    • Installation of memorial plaques on the replacement bridge.

HPI has been instrumental in every mitigation phase. Efforts to preserve the swing- and through-truss center spans by adaptive reuse once they are removed from their current piers was at the request of the NY SHPO. These spans were “marketed” to public parks, engineering, and planning departments within a 15-mile radius along contiguous waterfronts. As a result of the Archaeological Evaluation by HPI, two loci are now addressed in future construction specifications. In Manhattan, the project site is potentially sensitive for a 17th century cemetery. The Bronx section is potentially sensitive for a ca. 1873 railroad roundhouse. HPI established the memorial plaque specifications for the construction contracts.