Today's best human/machine interest story has got to be the serpent-like, 200-ton drill that will be entombed 14 stories below lower Park Avenue. The New York Times reports that the drill, carving out bedrock since 2007 for a proposed, not-looking-so-hot Long Island connection beneath Grand Central Station, will be abandoned by Spanish developer Dragados rather than dismantled and sold for parts. And what makes the cutter head so mighty and difficult to extract? (It's not every Monday you get to read the word "Brobdingnagian" in the paper!) It's "as tall as four men with the weight of two whales" and it would take months, not to mention an extra $9 million, to carve out a 40-foot-wide vertical shaft for removal right in front of Park Avenue's Union League Club.
· Deep Below Park Avenue, A Monster at Rest [NYT]
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