This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

We have something a little different on the show this week.

If it isn't obvious, I'm what you'd call pro-infrastructure.

Of course, some infrastructure is vital and

necessary and some infrastructure isn't, but it all has to be made right. It's hard

work, it's dangerous work, and it's often union work.

This story is about New York City, Sandhogs, local 147,

and they are the urban miners who build every tunnel in New York City

and many of the Bridge Foundations.

Without them, there would be no sewers, no subways,

no tunnels for cars, no water,

basically no New York City.

To quote the local 147 website,

without the tunnels built by the Sanhogs, New York would have ceased

to exist around the time of the American Civil War.

So in 1994, radio producer Dan Kalsen interviewed the Sandhogs as they were working on New York City Water Tunnel Number 3.

And if you've seen the third Die Hard movie, Die Hart with a vengeance, you've seen New York City Water Tunnel Number 3 under construction.

It's pretty amazing to see and the voices of the

San Hawks responsible for building that tunnel are amazing to hear.

Seriously I could listen to them talk all day but on this episode we'll just listen

for 22 minutes.

This is Sandhogs by Long Hall Productions produced in 1994 by Dan Collison. Through the heart of the heart of a great metropolis flows the mighty Hudson River,

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