Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
Past Event
SECOND AVENUE SUBWAY:
BUILDING NEW YORK CITY'S MOST FAMOUS THING NEVER BUILT
Dan McNichol
Author
Bill Goodrich
Former Executive Vice President New York State MTA
Patrick J. Cashin
MTA Photographer
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2024
6:00 – 8:30 PM
New York Transit Museum
99 Schermerhorn Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Second Avenue Subway: Building New York City’s Most Famous Thing Never Built
Hard Cover
Non-Fiction
Trim Size: 10x10"
Page Count: 350 pages
Image Count: 256 (mostly unpublished)
Publisher: Big Dig Productions, Inc.
“Three subway stops have never been more important to a nation,” opens Dan McNichol’s new book, Second Avenue Subway: Building The Most Famous Thing Never Built In New York City.
Mission Statement
Create compelling story that builds public awareness which benefits the development of civic infrastructure megaprojects.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![TBM Launch Countdown—May 11, 2010]()
TBM Launch Countdown—May 11, 2010
Beneath 92nd Street, Sandhogs ready the 450-foot-long, 500-ton tunnel boring machine (TBM) just days before its official launch.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![The Best “Hogs”—January 21, 2011]()
The Best “Hogs”—January 21, 2011
A crew of Sandhogs relaxes alongside the tunnel boring machine (TBM).
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Muck Train Tracks—January 21. 2011]()
Muck Train Tracks—January 21. 2011
Looking out at the Launch Box from inside the west bore. Two tradespeople straddle opposite sides of temporary railroad tracks set up to haul muck from mining operations taking place farther downtown, as much as a mile away. An air duct providing fresh air into the west bore hangs at the top of the twenty-two-foot-diameter tunnel.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Twin Tunnels—April 7, 2011]()
Twin Tunnels—April 7, 2011
Inside the Launch Box looking towards Downtown.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Breakthrough—September 22, 2011]()
Breakthrough—September 22, 2011
At the 63rd Street station, a Sandhog climbs up to the cutter head of the giant tunnel boring machine moments after the Second avenue Subway project’s mining work was done.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Sandhog Hopper Hustle—July 11, 2013]()
Sandhog Hopper Hustle—July 11, 2013
Union workers known as “Sandhogs” from Local 147 hustle a hopper of concrete coming down from Second Avenue.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Massive Mezzanine—January 11, 2014]()
Massive Mezzanine—January 11, 2014
Bay Crane’s rubber-tired crane works inside the mezzanine of the future 86th Street station, assisting workers (top left) who are erecting concrete forms.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Upper East Side’s Hell’s Kitchen—November 2, 2016]()
Upper East Side’s Hell’s Kitchen—November 2, 2016
The heat in the kitchen was building with only seven weeks to go till opening day.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Life Imitates Art—November 2, 2016]()
Life Imitates Art—November 2, 2016
Vik Muniz’s artwork was first made visible to a tradesman (on the right, in a yellow shirt) who was at work installing the Seventy-Second Street station’s finishes when the piece was revealed.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
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![Yorkville’s Sneak Peak—December 30, 2016]()
Yorkville’s Sneak Peak—December 30, 2016
Patrick Cashin’s award-winning photo captures Yorkville residents exercising their invitations to a sneak peak of the new Eighty-Sixth Street station.
Photo: Patrick J. Cashin | MTA
Dan McNichol
Books
Second Avenue Subway
Building New York City’s Most Famous Thing Never Built
The Largest Urban Construction Project in the History of the Modern World
The Big Dig
The Roads That Built America
The Incredible Story of the U.S. Interstate System
A Legacy of Leadership
Governors And American History
The Big Dig
Mapping America’s Great Public Project
The Big Dig at Night
The Big Dig
Trivia Quiz Book
Paving the Way
Asphalt in America
Dan McNichol is a number one best-selling author. For decades, his books have celebrated the nation’s greatest infrastructure projects. He is an award-winning journalist and public speaker who has written for the New York Times, contributing to a front-page story urging the president of the United States to “build something inspiring.” As a national correspondent for ENR (Engineering News-Record magazine), McNichol drove across America in his rusty antique car, a 1949 Hudson, which became a metaphor for the nation’s broken infrastructure. He did this while reporting on the need to invest in civic projects. A regular contributor to National Public Radio programs, McNichol appears in numerous major documentaries about infrastructure. He served the president of the United States as a White House appointee focused on transportation infrastructure policy. His highly regarded experience and insight have led to communication gigs on the nation’s largest infrastructure projects, including as a chief spokesman for Boston’s Big Dig, California’s High Speed Rail, and reconstruction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Bill Goodrich has worked for over forty years as a transportation infrastructure program executive, professional structural engineer, and construction manager. Most recently, he served as executive vice president and senior program executive for the New York State Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) where he directed two megaprojects: Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway; and East Side Access, whose terminal, Grand Central Madison, opened for revenue service in early 2023 in Midtown Manhattan. Prior to joining the MTA, he worked as a consultant to the MTA on the Bovis Lend Lease/Parsons Brinckerhoff construction management team for the Fulton Transit Center in Lower Manhattan. He also worked as a construction manager with the Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff program management team on the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (a.k.a. the Big Dig) in Boston prior to coming to New York City. A licensed professional engineer in New York and Massachusetts, Bill is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and earned an MS in civil engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Brooklyn born and bred, Patrick Cashin has a long interest in photography, which began while serving his country as an engineman on the USS Denver, an amphibious transport dock of the U.S. Navy. His “interest” became a passion as he captured the haunting faces of the Vietnamese people during Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Vietnam. Following four years of active duty and an honorable discharge from the Navy, Cashin joined Newsweek magazine, working full time in the photo lab while attending evening classes in photography at the Parsons School of Design. Patrick began as staff photographer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1999, creating visually inspiring photographs of transportation infrastructure, from transit tunnels to toll bridges. His prestigious sixteen-year career at Newsweek and twenty-year career with the MTA have brought him international freelance opportunities, and he continued photographing for the U.S. military till his retirement after 30 years serving in the Reserves. Cashin’s photographs have appeared in the New York Times, the Sunday Times, the New York Daily News, the London Times and Engineering News Record, to name just a few. Cashin is now retired, but continues to accept freelance assignments.
Dr. Christiansen is an educator, editor and genius vintage car mechanic. He accompanied Dan McNichol on four nationwide media tours covering over 50,000 miles of road trips - each time in vintage Hudson automobiles. The Christiansen-McNichol duo successfully garnered local and national media attention calling for reconstructing the nation’s infrastructure. “I keep the Hudsons running so Dan can keep his mouth running,” explains Christiansen. He honed his editing skills creating technical test questions for science and technology examinations for Massachusetts public schools, retiring in 2019 after twenty years in this role. Born in New York City, Christiansen worked on the New York City’s subway system modernizing the switches in the oldest parts of the system in Manhattan. From 1959 until 1961 he was an inspector of the subway system mechanical systems. He also worked on a project monitoring the development of electronic test equipment at NYU.
Denisse Leatxe is an award-winning visual communicator, graphic designer and art director, whose professional career spans over 25 years. As the founder of Txiki Txoko, she works in the art of telling stories visually—leveraging her experience in global humanitarian and sustainable development, project management, and finance. She consults with small businesses and established organizations in the non-profit and corporate sectors, transforming their words, ideas and data into stunning visuals, empowering them to tell their stories in ways that words alone can’t.