Saturday, April 3, 2010

AKRF archaeologist giddy over downtown artifacts

From Metro:

Pointy shoes, oyster shells, clay pipes and other detritus of the Dutch who founded New Amsterdam, the British who followed and the early New Yorkers were among the 65,000 artifacts uncovered during construction of the $400 million South Ferry subway terminal.

A sampling of the remnants, including segments of the 18th-century battery wall that gave Battery Park its name, are now on display at the New York Transit Museum’s annex at Grand Central Terminal.

Diane Dallal, archaeology director for AKRF, a firm that analyzed the artifacts, was excited to find yellow Dutch bricks that once lined walkways.

“A lot of times you see these black-and-white drawings of New York,” she said. “But it must have been very colorful.”


Her attitude is interesting considering Dallal works for AKRF, the firm the city and state hires whenever it wants to do something particularly dastardly, such as Columbia University expansion, Atlantic Yards, etc. She is the one who probably gave the green light to the MTA to start digging despite the fact that it was an archaeologically sensitive area, just like she did at the St. Saviour's site in spite of the LPC stating that there was a strong likelihood of finding similar archeologically sensitive material and graves at the site. This gal really gets around!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny how everyone is gagga everytime a hole is dug in Manhattan while in Queens they can do nasty stuff not only at historic sites (St Savoriurs) but at cemetaries (Old Astoria.)

Got photographs of dumpsters full of gravestones and the like at St Michaels from 20 years ago ... now at Socrates Park.

Even then the tower people had contempt for the rest of us.

The final resting place of our relatives makes garden do-dads for precious outdoor works of 'art' (subsidized by our taxes)

georgetheatheist said...

Dig deeper into the layers and you'll come across Solutrean spear points.

Evan S. said...

Ya found my pipe!!!!

Anonymous said...

what's the matter george? your one track mind seems to have displaced ayn rand in favor of even sillier nonsense.

LibertyBoyNYC said...

That pipe is only a couple of years old. "Charred material"...lol

Evan S said...

"Charred material"...lol

How much do ya need?