Sandhog

Sandhog

Sandhog is the slang term given to urban miners, construction workers who work underground on a variety of excavation projects. 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 equipment from TBM (tunnel boring machines) to blasting a path for the project they are building. The term is a US-American colloquialism.

Starting with their first job in 1872, the Brooklyn Bridge, the "hogs" have built a large part of the city of New York -- the subways and sewers, Water Tunnels #1 & #2 as well as the currently under construction Water Tunnel #3, the Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown, and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels to name a few, as well as the foundations for most of the bridges and many of the skyscrapers in the city. Since their work is mostly done below street level, in an unseen world of rock, sand, and earth, recognition of their achievements has been limited. Many of these workers would be Irish or Irish American.

Sandhogs are diverse in backgrounds, interests, and personalities, but are generally united in their work. Sandhogging is somewhat of a tradition and is passed down through generations of families; since mining projects span decades, it is not uncommon to find multi-generations of families working together on the same job.

In the October 1997 issue of Esquire magazine, a series of photographs by David Allee, with a text accompanyment by Thomas Kelly, documents the life and work of the Sandhog. In 2006 at Grand Central Terminal in New York City there was a large-scale photo and video installation about the sandhogs, The Sandhog Project, created by artist Gina LeVay.

External links

* [http://www.sandhogs147.org New York City Sandhogs Local Union No. 147]
* [http://www.sandhogproject.com Sandhog Project]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050615_LENS_FEATURE/blocker.html New York Times interactive feature on Sandhogs]

* [http://www.amny.com/news/local/newyork/am-tunnel-flash,0,3688796.flash amNew York Video tour of NYC's Water Tunnel No. 3]


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • sandhog — ☆ sandhog [sand′hôg΄, sand′häg΄ ] n. a laborer employed in underground or underwater construction projects, working under compressed air, as in a caisson or tunnel …   English World dictionary

  • sandhog — noun Date: 1903 a laborer who works in a caisson in driving underwater tunnels …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • sandhog — /sand hog , hawg /, n. 1. a laborer who digs or works in sand. 2. a person who works, usually in a caisson, in digging underwater tunnels. Also, sand hog. [1900 05, Amer.; SAND + HOG] * * * …   Universalium

  • sandhog — noun a person employed to dig tunnels …   Wiktionary

  • sandhog — n. one who works or digs in sand; one who works underground …   English contemporary dictionary

  • sandhog — noun N. Amer. a person doing construction work underground or under water …   English new terms dictionary

  • sandhog — sand•hog [[t]ˈsændˌhɒg, ˌhɔg[/t]] n. a person who works in a caisson in digging underwater tunnels • Etymology: 1900–05, amer …   From formal English to slang

  • sandhog — n. US a person who works underwater laying foundations, constructing tunnels, etc …   Useful english dictionary

  • David Allee — David S. Allee (born 1969) is an American photographer. Allee received an undergraduate degree in economics and government from Cornell University in 1991, and his MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts (2001). Allee came to… …   Wikipedia

  • Borden Chase — (January 11, 1900 ndash; March 8, 1971) was an American writer.Born Frank Fowler, he went through an assortment of jobs, including driving for gangster Frankie Yale and working as a sandhog on the construction of New York s Holland Tunnel, before …   Wikipedia

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