Tag Archives: engineering

A Walk In The Woods

14 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Hiking, Photography

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That was actually a pretty good movie, with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. But for us, it wasn’t the misadventures while walking the Appalachian Trail. It was just a peaceful, late afternoon stroll along the Big Gunpowder Falls. 

I always like checking out the bridges. Quite a few bandaids on it and should be rebuilt. This is where Harford Rd. crosses the Falls.

Here we have Molly not wanting to get her feet wet. This is crossing over Jenifer’s Branch. We did that hike once before so we stuck with the Gunpowder on this trip. 

Can’t blame Molly for not wanting to get wet – the water was cold.

Ice in early November.

Even though it was cold, this little guy was reaching for the sun, trying to stay alive.

I don’t think this stuff ever dies.

Daily black and white. Some b/w make the day dreary looking. Our days hiking are always fun. We stay positive. And Kathy has shown me how to be aware of the goodness of the hike (as opposed to my just trudging through, seeing how many cool photos I can take, to post on FaceBook!!)

I now take the time to reflect on what I am seeing – to look across and up in the trees.

Sitting pretty.

Just need to focus on what is around me, on that which is in front of me, on what is important. To be in the moment. Mindful Walking.

Kathy’s gift to the tree. Art in the park.

Our map of the trip. The one thing about AllTrails is, it shows how long you are out there while recording (over 2 hours) but when you save it, it only shows how long you were actually moving. Guess I better check the settings or will probably have to upgrade.

Water History Drawings

03 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by in Baltimore, engineering, water history

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I love it when engineers, from the real world outside of Montebello, send me historic drawings. Not only did he send me some really nice ones, he gave me a link to thousands of others. I’m glad someone else in the Water Department, besides me, is saving our history. Here is one that threw me off at first glance.

I know where the drain tunnel is off of Lake Montebello, but looking close at this drawing and at a recent photo I had taken of the drain where it enters Herring Run, something just didn’t look right.

Here is the photo from my inspection down there. Looks about right, but, the drawing says it is of the West Portal? West? This is east of the lake as shown in the 1894 topography below.

To the right of this kidney bean shaped lake is a small arrow pointing to the drain. Then looking close to the left, near Hillen Road is another portal. This is west. Also, the top elevation of 146′ matches the drawing. The east portal top elevation is about 120′. I wish I had photos of when this structure existed. It is all built over now. Under Hillen Road is a large storm drain – 9-12′ that goes into the gate house (Structure with unknown quarter moon shaped object next to it).

Here is another drawing, unknown location because all the shafts were filled in. (Unknown, even though it gives the station as 22+50. Without the overall view, I’m not sure where the engineer started his stations? 2,250 feet from where?

It shows how they built these tunnels, by hand, through solid rock. Bottom legend shows cost and materials. Thanks Engineering!

N.Y. Trip

30 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in Hiking, New York, Photography

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Another day trip to New York. Always a lot of fun and a lot of walking. You cannot beat the Groupon $33 round trip price. Our driver just flies up the highway. Went thru the Holland Tunnel and got off at 8th and 45th. Went to the City Kitchen then headed over to the subway. 

It was a lot cleaner than I thought it would be. Lots of people in N.Y. for some reason.

Looking down at one of the trains.

Our first stop was at the 9/11 memorial. This is some sort of mall?

Inside view.

Bright sunny day with lots of reflections.

More reflections.

Reflecting pool. Hard to believe there once was a building here – full of people.

Kathy left her cellphone at work, so I’m not sure who she is talking to – on a cloaked phone.

The Survivor Tree. Discovered amidst the wreckage of 9/11 – transplanted and cared for, then brought back to be planted here.

An art sculpture from the wreckage at WTC Plaza. 1971 “The Sphere”

Back on the subway and headed to Staten Island Ferry. The subway card did not work after Kathy went thru – a woman held the gate open for me! Niceness in NY!

From outside the ferry terminal you can see the Brooklyn Bridge.

Leaving the terminal and watching a million people standing in line for the ferry, we walked over to Battery Park. Besides being able to see Lady Liberty from there, they have many statues around.

My B&W post of the day.

This was a strange one – called The Immigrants. 

Castle Clinton. Had some nice dioramas inside.

Another statue. This was blocked off and we couldn’t read what it was about.

Korean War Memorial – Got his camos on.

The Seaglass Carousel. 

Leaves are slow to turn up here.

After Battery Park we caught another subway to Chelsea Market. Building on the way.

This place was packed. Halloween stuff going on.

Halloween stuff!Left the market and headed to the High Line.

Another view. This is at 14th Street.

And here is an old time view. Interesting history about this. Plenty of articles on Google.

The High Line was old train tracks above the City, turned into a garden.

Finally some fall colors.

From 14th street we headed south to the end. Kathy got a kick out of me wanting to keep walking. This is at Gansevoort St. From here on, the rails were destroyed.

Besides being a nice hike, you get to see so much on the High Line.

I saw an old time photo of this. Didn’t think one still existed!

Lots of art work around and to be seen from an eye level view.

On the way heading north.

We are almost at the end and we come across this, just before 34th St.

Lots of new construction going on. This is Hudson Yard.

Leave the High Line and head back to the Theater District. Sights on the way.

Ha! Ralph Kramden!

Times Square is always a treat. Guy flipping over tourist.

Nice day and lots of people. We ate at Shake Shack, went to Muji and just hung out until it was time to head home.

Eastern Pumping Station aka Food Hub

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Baltimore, engineering, water history

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Went to check on the status of the work being done at the old EPS down on Wolf St. (Not to be confused with the Eastern Avenue Pumping Station). The first thing I see is a new roof on the old Gay St. Yard, which later became City S/R 06 then part of the Transit and Traffic storage yard. 

Below is what the building looked like when it was first built.

This was about 1902. 

Sign on the gate showing what is going on. The gate was opened so I invited myself in. Something I’m not sure of, because I thought the Pumping Station was a Historic Place, why does this banner show it as a flat roof (green)?

The building to the right is what it originally looked like. 

This building was just recently put up. It is called the Food Incubator (Best to go to the Foodhub website for more info on this) I went inside here to find the general contractor to ask permission to roam around. Granted. He told me the City no longer owns these 3-1/2 acres. They were bought. And soon to be rented out. The new roof, as shown in the first photo is only to help protect the property. It will be up to others to fix the buildings.

The pumping station ready to be rented out. Someone actually went thru and cleaned the inside of these buildings. I was here in 2014 and it was a mess.

Hallway up to the 2nd floor.

A room with a view.

Heading towards the next building…

Last time I was here, I was able to go up and down this spiral staircase.

Last night’s rain splattering on the floor.

These shots are all of the old maintenance shop. They made valves and hydrants here.

The maintenance shop, in middle, and the storage yard. P.S. to left. 

I think this sign should have been at the front gate?!

I believe this was the workmen’s bath house. It is completely gutted now.

This is the rear of the first building with the new roof. Steps inside are shot, so I took the scaffold up.

Nice new roof. 

Headed across the yard to one of the shops/carriage houses. The blacksmith shop had burnt down a few times.

Here is what the above building use to look like.

Hard hat area.

Looking from stables back towards main buildings.

Random engineering craziness!

This was from the Food Hub’s brochure. When I was in front of the building, this was all grown over. Although the date says 1890 my notes tell me that this Pumping Station was completed in 1891.

If you send me your email, I will send you a brief word document covering the history of these buildings.

200th Blog

20 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in water history, Writing

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My WordPress Dashboard tells me that this is my 200th blog post. So, since my blog is called Water and Me, maybe I should write something about water? Trying to think of something profound or water history worthy! I know – Don’t Drink The Water!!!

In 2006 I started writing about water history, doing research and then eventually writing a small book, mostly on one of the water tunnels that supplies water to the Montebello Filters. Here is the Lantern Slide I saved from the dumpster, that started it all:

This is what I had to say about it in my book: “While working with one of the lantern slides, I noticed something odd, that in a tunnel, where workers were excavating, there were train tracks that came to a dead end under what looked like a giant boulder. This particular slide came from a box from around 1938, so I asked Richard if he had any information on an event of that year that was of interest. Sure enough, he showed me the Annual Report covering the year 1938 where it was reported that an explosion had occurred in the building of the Gunpowder Falls Montebello Tunnel. This notation in the report was only about a half a paragraph long, nothing more than a blurb, so I decided to investigate it further.” And I have been investigating water history ever since. Ten men were killed in this explosion and it was just a blurb in a report!

After years of refining my skills at research, I came across so much more information on this explosion. It is amazing what you can find these days on the internet. I found this photo and purchased it from the Baltimore Sun.

It shows the ten dead African American miners being hauled out. My research has taken me to draw the conclusion that this was no accident. That because of the Union troubles going on back then (Fighting between Unions for membership), this was a case of murder.

Sometimes historical research is not pleasant. Just as much as present day research can be unsettling. Like my comment above to not drink the water. I don’t drink it because of the research I have done concerning the fluoridation of the water system. But, I will save that for another post…

Speaking of Loch Raven – Update

12 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in engineering, water history

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These aerial photographs were just sent to me from Corey at www.aceservinc.com

Makes me want to go out and buy a drone! As far as I know, the busted ten foot conduit has not been fixed, but these guys are doing an exceptional job on building the new Loch Raven Maintenance Yard and Admin buildings. 

This is a great shot, including the dam in the background.

Another view of the same area.

Up the road a piece is the new admin building. The abandoned Zebra Mussel Station is in the background.

Thanks Corey.

Building Montebello Filters and Loch Raven Dam

12 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Archives, HISTORY, water history

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I am now in the process of documenting Water Board minutes from 1912-1919, Baltimore City. Over the course of blogging water history, some readers had asked information concerning relatives that may have worked on the New Dam at Loch Raven and/or constructing the Filtration Plant at Montebello. These ledgers have list of employees and their addresses and in some cases, their titles and pay rates. If you think this may be you, send me their names and I will try to look up that info. Keep in mind this is for the above dates. Once I am finished documenting, these books are going into the archives…

Lake Ashburton 1908-1910

04 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in Baltimore, engineering, Photography, water history

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More files, more documenting. More work. As stated before, I am trying to get my archive files in some sort of order so that at a later date, it will be easier for people to find things. (Not that I really think anyone will go through this stuff once I’m gone, but I can retire with a clear conscience that yes, I did my job).

What has made this job difficult, yet interesting, is that various people have had numerous boxes of archives scattered throughout the City. A lot were mislabelled. These photos came from a box of glass plate negatives marked as ‘Loch Raven’ Bringing it all together in some sort of order is challenging. Chaos:

It is hard to believe that out of this construction chaos there will be built a reservoir so that the citizens of Baltimore will be able to enjoy drinking water. These are the pipes from the lake to the gate house (foundation in background).

Many years ago when I started this project, I had no clue about glass plate negatives, positive photos, restoration, etc. When I held the above GPN up to the light I thought it was a bad one – the white shown coming from the pneumatic jack hammers is black on the negative. I thought it was ruined until I processed it. Duh.

This one I have yet had a chance to restore. What I found interesting here is the suitcase in the upper right corner. Not only is this GPN broken, some of the image has peeled off.

Another interesting one from 1908 shows a church in the background. The writing on the sleeve said: Epiphany College in background.

Before building the lake the engineers had to move and raise the sewer/storm water manholes.

The photographer did a good job catching this dynamite blast at the right time.

This broken jigsaw puzzle plate I did restore.

 

Tying Up Loose Ends

21 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in Photography, water history

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Since my retirement is pretty much just around the corner, I need to start working on “Tying up some loose ends”, so to speak. At work, this means getting my files together and putting them in order so others may find important information. As far as my work on the DPW Museum archives, I do not think I will ever get this done. Just so much stuff.

I came back across an old box full of broken glass plate negatives. I guess it must be about 24 8″x10″ plates. Hard to tell because most are broken into a lot of small pieces. Some, like the one below, are in just a couple pieces, making restoration fairly simple. Years ago, before computer scanning and restoration software, the previous archivist either placed the pieces on a Xerox copier and scanned them or took a photograph of the pieces, placed together as best they could. They came out as negatives. I need to find those paper copies to help put the pieces back together.

Here is one of the better broken plates. The slivers from the crack will never be found by me. So I filled it in as best I could with the software. When I first started my water history research, I had no idea that Baltimore City built one dam on top of another. The upper right portion shown was built in steps, at an elevation of 188′. This was to be able to support the newer dam which would be built at elevation 240′. It was thought to be able to support a dam at 270′.

The jigsaw puzzle, restoration process is long and tedious and I don’t believe I will have the time to finish up this box of broken pieces. Let alone finish up documenting what is left to be done.