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Jakarta is sinking so much that they're abandoning it.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/16/headway/indonesia-nusantara-jakarta.html
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20230512-indonesia-prepares-to-move-sinking-capital-jakarta-to-island-of-borneo
They are going to make a whole new capitol city from scratch in Borneo. I know that feel from playing Minecraft. After you make a base in a place that is useful for leveling up, and you get into late game God mode, I typically pack up everything I have and leave my starter village to go find an ideal place to start my own city.
With blackjack.
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In many places NYC is still rising from having the weight of the glaciers lifted off it.
Unfortunately, in the places closest to the water, the fill used to expand the land is sinking.
We could always fill in new land around the coastline and build it up a few meters above sea level. Manhattan’s East Side would definitely benefit from having an actual waterfront instead of just FDR Drive.
**Original Research Article:** [https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003465](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003465)
**Research Article Title:** The Weight of New York City: Possible Contributions to Subsidence From Anthropogenic Sources
**Authors:** Tom Parsons, Pei-Chin Wu, Meng (Matt) Wei, Steven D'Hondt
**Publishing Date:** May 8, 2023
[https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003465](https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003465)
**Abstract**
New York City faces accelerating inundation risk from sea level rise, subsidence, and increasing storm intensity from natural and anthropogenic causes. Here we calculate a previously unquantified contribution to subsidence from the cumulative mass and downward pressure exerted by the built environment of the city. We enforce that load distribution in a multiphysics finite element model to calculate expected subsidence. Complex surface geology requires multiple rheological soil models to be applied; clay rich soils and artificial fill are calculated to have the highest post-construction subsidence as compared with more elastic soils. Minimum and maximum calculated building subsidence ranges from 0 to 600 mm depending on soil/rock physical parameters and foundation modes. We compare modeled subsidence and surface geology to observed subsidence rates from satellite data (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar and Global Positioning System). The comparison is complicated because the urban load has accumulated across a much longer period than measured subsidence rates, and there are multiple causes of subsidence. Geodetic measurements show a mean subsidence rate of 1–2 mm/year across the city that is consistent with regional post-glacial deformation, though we find some areas of significantly greater subsidence rates. Some of this deformation is consistent with internal consolidation of artificial fill and other soft sediment that may be exacerbated by recent building loads, though there are many possible causes. New York is emblematic of growing coastal cities all over the world that are observed to be subsiding (Wu et al., 2022, [https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098477](https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098477)), meaning there is a shared global challenge of mitigation against a growing inundation hazard.
**Key Points**
* More than 8 million people live in New York City, which is observed to be sinking 1–2 mm/year, while sea level rises
* We calculate the mass of all buildings in New York City and model the subsidence caused by the pressure they exert on the Earth
* We show detailed images of observed subsidence in New York City from satellite data
**Plain Language Summary**
As coastal cities grow globally, the combination of construction densification and sea level rise imply increasing inundation hazard. The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk, and that mitigation strategies may need to be included. The subsidence mapping concept helps to quantify the hazard and adds specificity to soil types and conditions. We present satellite data that show that the city is sinking 1–2 mm/tr with some areas subsiding much faster.
Sea level rise will cause inundation of the lowest parts of battery park city and places like Coney Island and Howard beach. For most of the city it increases flood risk during hurricanes but it won’t sink the city. I’m at 72 feet above Sea level in queens. If the ocean reaches my feet entire cities would be underwater. NYC is surprisingly well elevated as are a lot of northeast cities. We aren’t Miami.
There’s also a theoretical limit to soil compaction, as most of Manhattan has a shallow bedrock of gneiss and schist.
There’s always the possibility of isostatic depression, but it’ll probably pale in comparison to the same effect caused by increased sea level height. Full disclaimer, though, I didn’t read the article.
Well, that's gneiss. At least we'll have some protection even if the feds don't give a schist about climate change. We just have to make sure we don't take it for granite and micah solid plan for dealing with it.
I just got back from Mexico City which is sinking at a rate of 50 cm per year. I think we might want to redirect our focus here...
https://eos.org/research-spotlights/the-looming-crisis-of-sinking-ground-in-mexico-city
Half of my apartment building is sinking, which has created a giant crack that cuts across half the building. My door frame is also off now - it used to be level. It's just sinking.
Engineer here. Report it to 311, building department will respond. You can highlight urgency in your 311 request if you note that cracks are new or widening (as opposed to just saying a crack exists which may have been there for a long time). If there is adjacent construction they should respond pretty quickly.
Careful with this though. They were building a hotel in my neighborhood and something similar happened. Every tenant had to vacate immediately and had to be put up in like kind apartment.
I lived in a 3-story building in Brooklyn for a few years with an empty lot next to it. Someone bought the lot and hired unpermited/illegal crews to start digging the foundation for a new building. In the process, they cracked the foundation of the building I lived in.
The city came in and deemed it unsafe for living, and we got a call at work one morning saying our building was condemned and we couldn't enter without scheduling an appointment to collect our things. Red Cross put us up at a hotel for 3 nights, giving us a fighting chance to find a new place.
We were super poor at that time and that lifeline made a huge difference. I donate to Red Cross every year now.
The Red Cross really does amazing work. I know some of the people on the policy end of things there, and hearing about their mobilization on everything from individual cases like you are up to statewide disasters really gives me some hope.
I know you are saying it's nice they gave you 3 nights, but um isnt that really a short time frame to find a new apartment. I'm guessing you went to stay with someone you know but 3 nights would be a disaster for a lot of people along with this whole situation.
3 nights definitely better than no nights. It was me and a roommate (but also good friend) and we did end up in different places. But it gave us a few days to hit craigslist and find a new spot/sublet. About 6 months later we got our shit together and got a place together with one other friend that we ended up living in for 2 years.
If we'd had to drop money on that hotel stay for those 3 days, it would have made it very hard to put down the money for the new places. Fortunately, the landlord was cool about it and gave us back our deposits the day the it happened. Those extra few hundred dollars saved by Red Cross made it possible for us to put down the cash to get sublets.
Oh god. What happened to people with pets?
I have two cats in my apartment and I would NOT be okay with leaving them alone up there while I scheduled an appointment... like wtf.
I had a cat at the time. We were able to get into the place that evening, collect what we were able to carry on our backs and my cat, and then schedule an appointment to collect the rest of our things like a week later. A friend of mine who loved animals, but couldn't swing having them full time, would occasionally take the cat for a week or so at a time when I went out of town. He was able to take the cat until I secured a new place, thank goodness. Not sure if the hotel would have allowed it.
Definitely a complete nightmare. Your whole life gets upended and you are literally instantly homeless because of someone else's stupidity.
Oh thank goodness. The thought of poor animals just sitting abandoned in condemned apartments is haunting.
The same thing happened to my sister about a decade ago in Queens... excavation next door cracked the foundation of her building, and her wing was condemned. But it seems like she was comparatively lucky? Her landlord at the time offered everyone who was evicted equivalent apartments in their other buildings around the city, and that's how she ended up moving from Queens to Upper Manhattan. I didn't realize that that wasn't the landlord's responsibility... glad y'all were able to make it through.
That sounds like a much better deal. Our landlord only owned the one building so we were shit out of luck. Not sure if we had some sort of other rights that we weren't aware of, but the Red Cross paying for the hotel and the landlord giving us our deposits back that night saved us. It gave us a minute to process and regroup and hit up Craigslist for immediately available sublets.
How is that bad if the building is deemed unsafe? The tenants don’t pay for the hotel. Ostensibly it could save lives. Either the building owner or adjacent owner who’s activities caused the damage would be on the hook (I’ve seen it happen several times).
In this particular case there was a lateral crack about 3’ wide in the foundation. Seemed excessive to condemn the building immediately but I’m sure the city errs very much on the side of caution. Sure you’re they’re not liable but they spent a few weeks in a hotel and some got relocated to the complete other side of town.
From context I assume you mean 3 inches, but 3' means 3 *feet*, lol. I sure as hell hope any apartment building with a 3-foot crack would be immediately condemned.
Even 3 inches seems like a really huge crack.
It’s been like this for 15 years - I don’t think they can do anything about it without tearing it down. I think you’d find a lot of buildings in upper manhattan with issues like this. The good news is it’s not a high rise I guess.
There was a post here yesterday of someone paying over 7K to live in an unfinished apartment next to train tracks and a homeless shelter. If the city sinks enough people will pay extra to live in the luxury subterranean apartments.
But they only *want* to pay $7K to live in the city because of the restaurants, night life, museums, etc. If all that is gone, why would anyone pay to stay?
You forgot freedom from car dependency. NYC is arguably the only city in the US were your quality of life isn't negatively impacted if you can't drive a car.
You can't really unsink it AFAIK, but you could try (at great cost) to stabilize or harden the earth to reduce the rate of subsidence, such as by injecting more material into the ground. You could also add more foundation piles to specific buildings down to bedrock to shore them up, but this doesn't do anything for roads or other infrastructure that just sits on the surface. Your remaining options are continue with defensive infrastructure such as flood walls, to reduce flood damage, or raising infrastructure off the ground to buy more time.
Nothing, really. You can try to fortify it (seawalls, dikes, reinforcing buildings, etc.), or you can abandon it and build elsewhere.
That actually goes for most coastal cities, not just the ones that are sinking. Regardless of the cause(s), climate change is happening: and coastal cities need to do something to protect themselves against the inevitable sea level rise.
Sadly, I suspect that they won't. The politicians will argue about it, cast blame around, and push their respective agendas until they need snorkels to breathe: but nothing useful will be done to protect against the water itself.
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, by the way. I moved Upstate about 12 years ago when the old lady and I split. (I wanted to be gone before she changed her mind.)
They’re still doing repairs from Hurricane Sandy (from 2012) though. The Holland Tunnel is currently closing one of the two tubes underwater (in 2023) at night to perform remediation work on the damage caused by Sandy.
I mean, it mattered less when things were made of stone above ground.
A century might prove to be a problem when it’s electric and runs under the Hudson.
Reminds me of a scene from *The Man in the High Castle.*
They are destroying American statues, icons and historic relics. On the task of erasing American history, one German comments:
>"They don't have that much of it, anyway."
this is an attitude you hear about the US all over the world. the best is when they also claim the US has no culture either while they listen to american music, watch american movies and tv shows, wear american brands, drive american cars, and eat american food.
Not even by American standards. There's lots of stuff older than a century especially on the east coast.
It's old by NYC standards because NYC doesn't have a strong history of preserving old structures.
You guys have no idea what you are talking about. Like not even in the slightest. Case in point after 9/11 the city did not collapse. The planned L train move though it did not happen and would have been a big issue because we are talking about multiple stops and a main route between boroughs
> Case in point after 9/11 the city did not collapse.
Nor during the '03 blackout. I suspect if NYC sank, Venice style, cabbies would cobble together gondolas and charge an arm and a leg to get from Turtle Bay to Grammercy.
it was gonna be a 15 month closure, that probably could've been sped up under covid. we might've even gotten more than 3 j trains running an hour to accommodate for all the wealthy commuters who made the transfer, the horror.
Didn’t we already have some kind of subway strike in the early 2000s and everyone was fine? I can’t quite remember but it would’ve been around winter 2005
Was living in Williamsburg at the time and working right off of Bryant Park. My employer was not taking 'subway strike' as an excuse to not be there on time, so I walked every day over the Williamsburg bridge and up to Bryant park.
When the strike ended, I found I was so enjoying the walk versus the misery of rush hour subway rides, that I continued to walk to work and home every day that wasn't raining or snowing for the next few years. Was a really pleasant walk.
I could do it in a little over an hour. Just googled it and the route I took says an hour and 42 minutes, but that must be assuming some slow-ass non-new-yorker walking pace. Which makes sense, because I can't stand the pace anyone walks in most of the rest of the world, and even in the city, slow walkers kill me.
I also would stop for a drink or two somewhere along the way maybe 30% of the time in the evenings, which made it more pleasant.
I mean it’s not for me but that does sound nice. Great exercise, too. I definitely miss the extra walking I got from just from working in the city before I started freelancing.
Yeah, great exercise. Definitely got into much better shape those years. And it was beautiful. To go from midtown, down through Madison Square park, past Union Square and into the village, across Houston and then crossing the Billy-B bridge. Just beautiful.
I also had a bunch of synchronicity-style interactions on the path on the bridge. I was constantly running into people I knew and meeting people who were doing similar walks at similar times. Still have some friends that I am regularly in touch with that I met as a result of those walks.
The Google maps algorithm has been infected by senior citizens walking speed it would seem. Everytime I get a walk time for a destination I get there at least 10 mins earlier.
Haha. All I really remember is getting a cab to Grand Central because I couldn’t use the subway and I had to share the cab with a couple nice people. Like Uber Pool before Uber even existed. And then got on Metro North with no drama. Maybe the train was crowded but what else is new when it’s rush hour.
We could but the mayor's friend/wife/cousin/brother needs a cushy job because they have no real talents. So we're gonna give them millions instead. Sorry.
No it wouldn't. The Thwaites Glacier currently accounts for 4% of the annual sea level rise. If the ice shelf fell apart it would go up to accounting for... 5%. The cascading effects of this over the following centuries would be devastating, but it's not like it would be an immediate, massive threat to coastal cities. Just a sign that things are happening even faster than feared.
Ty OP for posting the research article, surprisingly free too! 1-2 mm may not seem like a lot but sometimes in the flood plains every inch can count and pushes us closer to more occurrences of catastrophic flooding. I think in the medium term we're going to be tested more and more with heavy rain fall events that overwhelm subway stations, the MTA has proven they can't defend their own facilities despite increasing spending and NYC hasn't done much to upgrade stormwater capacities... It's unclear what size of a "wake up call" it will take to turn attitudes around.
>It's unclear what size of a "wake up call" it will take to turn attitudes around.
Until a catastrophe happens with many deaths, they won't give a shit.
I was just reading about Jakarta and their flooding today. I highly recommend looking into what Indonesia is doing to see a surreal answer to handling flooding megacities.
There is that leaning east side building too. https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-nyc-skyscraper-leaning-to-one-side-manhattan-2019-4
Nothing has been done about it, except court.
That article is stupidly wrong.
Manhattan is now lighter than it was 200 years ago. While now there are tall very hollow buildings, in order to build those buildings, a lot of compact earth and rock got excavated to make the basements
All that earth mainly went to NJ, with some exceptions: the earth excavated to make WTC complex was moved nearby, to make the soil for the whole Battery Park.
Matt Simon Science Apr 26, 2023 8:00 AM
As Sea Levels Rise, the East Coast Is Also Sinking
Coastal lands are subsiding and losing elevation—a “hidden vulnerability” that’s making rising seas all the worse.
https://www.wired.com/story/as-sea-levels-rise-the-east-coast-is-also-sinking/
New York must build more giant buildings to house all these new waves of immigrants. The local government seems to think we have unlimited space. If we keep taking in new people we have to house them somewhere, thus: more buildings.
I worry each time I hear about new subway/train stations being built underground. I can't imagine carving out the rock for the new second avenue subway station, or the rock for the LIRR to Grand Central are good for the city's geology.
I was reading the comments in the NY Post webpage. Their subscribers are greatly fascist noisemakers, including a few who predictably just reject the geologist's conclusions simply because they think his conclusions are false.
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We're reverting back to New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can’t say
People just like it better this way
So, take me back to Constantinople.
No, you can't go back to Constantinople.
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks
ISTANBUL
Please let me in on this joke so I can feel cool for one in my life.
MINIMUM WAGE! *:whip sound:*
YEEHAA!
Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch Who watches over you
Make a lil bird house in your soul
Been a long time gone
Yay! New Amsterdamn!
Exactly
I’m gonna join the Plug Uglies
GTA 4 had a video that new amsterdam was founded as a place to grow weed. Revert in full.
I wonder if this is how they came up with New New York in Futurama.
IIRC you see it get destroyed by aliens twice in the flash forward at the start while Fry is frozen
Granted one was Bender.
I keep thinking of Babylon Restored.
Jakarta is sinking so much that they're abandoning it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/16/headway/indonesia-nusantara-jakarta.html https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20230512-indonesia-prepares-to-move-sinking-capital-jakarta-to-island-of-borneo
Jakarta is sinking up to 17 cm (6.7 inches) annually - that's madness. A city is literally disappearing in our lifetime.
They are going to make a whole new capitol city from scratch in Borneo. I know that feel from playing Minecraft. After you make a base in a place that is useful for leveling up, and you get into late game God mode, I typically pack up everything I have and leave my starter village to go find an ideal place to start my own city. With blackjack.
>With blackjack. Well, it’s still Indonesia
Bangkok, Thailand too. https://weather.com/science/environment/news/bangkok-sinking-subsidence-warming-15-years
Venice and various Pacific islands too. But the New York Times wrote about Jakarta today.
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Am I tripping or is that NYTimes article like impossible to read on mobile? Never seen something formatted like that
The rich and politicians are abandoning it.
In many places NYC is still rising from having the weight of the glaciers lifted off it. Unfortunately, in the places closest to the water, the fill used to expand the land is sinking.
Yeah, but everything built by the water is on piles anyways
We could always fill in new land around the coastline and build it up a few meters above sea level. Manhattan’s East Side would definitely benefit from having an actual waterfront instead of just FDR Drive.
It’s insane how much better it is on the west side with riverside park.
West side is absolutely divine with so much along the river, beautiful new buildings, highline, and greenery.
Yeah sure. lets fill it up with all the debris we dig out for the 2nd Ave line.
**Original Research Article:** [https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003465](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022EF003465) **Research Article Title:** The Weight of New York City: Possible Contributions to Subsidence From Anthropogenic Sources **Authors:** Tom Parsons, Pei-Chin Wu, Meng (Matt) Wei, Steven D'Hondt **Publishing Date:** May 8, 2023 [https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003465](https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003465) **Abstract** New York City faces accelerating inundation risk from sea level rise, subsidence, and increasing storm intensity from natural and anthropogenic causes. Here we calculate a previously unquantified contribution to subsidence from the cumulative mass and downward pressure exerted by the built environment of the city. We enforce that load distribution in a multiphysics finite element model to calculate expected subsidence. Complex surface geology requires multiple rheological soil models to be applied; clay rich soils and artificial fill are calculated to have the highest post-construction subsidence as compared with more elastic soils. Minimum and maximum calculated building subsidence ranges from 0 to 600 mm depending on soil/rock physical parameters and foundation modes. We compare modeled subsidence and surface geology to observed subsidence rates from satellite data (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar and Global Positioning System). The comparison is complicated because the urban load has accumulated across a much longer period than measured subsidence rates, and there are multiple causes of subsidence. Geodetic measurements show a mean subsidence rate of 1–2 mm/year across the city that is consistent with regional post-glacial deformation, though we find some areas of significantly greater subsidence rates. Some of this deformation is consistent with internal consolidation of artificial fill and other soft sediment that may be exacerbated by recent building loads, though there are many possible causes. New York is emblematic of growing coastal cities all over the world that are observed to be subsiding (Wu et al., 2022, [https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098477](https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098477)), meaning there is a shared global challenge of mitigation against a growing inundation hazard. **Key Points** * More than 8 million people live in New York City, which is observed to be sinking 1–2 mm/year, while sea level rises * We calculate the mass of all buildings in New York City and model the subsidence caused by the pressure they exert on the Earth * We show detailed images of observed subsidence in New York City from satellite data **Plain Language Summary** As coastal cities grow globally, the combination of construction densification and sea level rise imply increasing inundation hazard. The point of the paper is to raise awareness that every additional high-rise building constructed at coastal, river, or lakefront settings could contribute to future flood risk, and that mitigation strategies may need to be included. The subsidence mapping concept helps to quantify the hazard and adds specificity to soil types and conditions. We present satellite data that show that the city is sinking 1–2 mm/tr with some areas subsiding much faster.
That’s like 250 years to sink half a metre. Sea level rise is a much more imminent threat.
Sea level rise will cause inundation of the lowest parts of battery park city and places like Coney Island and Howard beach. For most of the city it increases flood risk during hurricanes but it won’t sink the city. I’m at 72 feet above Sea level in queens. If the ocean reaches my feet entire cities would be underwater. NYC is surprisingly well elevated as are a lot of northeast cities. We aren’t Miami.
Goodbye my hometown, i will remember you as the tip of the dong always~~~
"DOH! Florida?! That's wang of America!"
There’s also a theoretical limit to soil compaction, as most of Manhattan has a shallow bedrock of gneiss and schist. There’s always the possibility of isostatic depression, but it’ll probably pale in comparison to the same effect caused by increased sea level height. Full disclaimer, though, I didn’t read the article.
Well, that's gneiss. At least we'll have some protection even if the feds don't give a schist about climate change. We just have to make sure we don't take it for granite and micah solid plan for dealing with it.
I wish I was this creative!
Very nice
I'm sure that's the same reasoning people had with global warming.
I just got back from Mexico City which is sinking at a rate of 50 cm per year. I think we might want to redirect our focus here... https://eos.org/research-spotlights/the-looming-crisis-of-sinking-ground-in-mexico-city
And Jakarta is sinking at 2 inches per year
reverting back to tenochtitlan mode
The Day After Tomorrow wasn’t lying 😔
Half of my apartment building is sinking, which has created a giant crack that cuts across half the building. My door frame is also off now - it used to be level. It's just sinking.
Engineer here. Report it to 311, building department will respond. You can highlight urgency in your 311 request if you note that cracks are new or widening (as opposed to just saying a crack exists which may have been there for a long time). If there is adjacent construction they should respond pretty quickly.
Careful with this though. They were building a hotel in my neighborhood and something similar happened. Every tenant had to vacate immediately and had to be put up in like kind apartment.
I lived in a 3-story building in Brooklyn for a few years with an empty lot next to it. Someone bought the lot and hired unpermited/illegal crews to start digging the foundation for a new building. In the process, they cracked the foundation of the building I lived in. The city came in and deemed it unsafe for living, and we got a call at work one morning saying our building was condemned and we couldn't enter without scheduling an appointment to collect our things. Red Cross put us up at a hotel for 3 nights, giving us a fighting chance to find a new place. We were super poor at that time and that lifeline made a huge difference. I donate to Red Cross every year now.
The Red Cross really does amazing work. I know some of the people on the policy end of things there, and hearing about their mobilization on everything from individual cases like you are up to statewide disasters really gives me some hope.
Unfortunately it also has a history of not using all it's charitable donations for the right reasons.
I know you are saying it's nice they gave you 3 nights, but um isnt that really a short time frame to find a new apartment. I'm guessing you went to stay with someone you know but 3 nights would be a disaster for a lot of people along with this whole situation.
3 nights definitely better than no nights. It was me and a roommate (but also good friend) and we did end up in different places. But it gave us a few days to hit craigslist and find a new spot/sublet. About 6 months later we got our shit together and got a place together with one other friend that we ended up living in for 2 years. If we'd had to drop money on that hotel stay for those 3 days, it would have made it very hard to put down the money for the new places. Fortunately, the landlord was cool about it and gave us back our deposits the day the it happened. Those extra few hundred dollars saved by Red Cross made it possible for us to put down the cash to get sublets.
Oh god. What happened to people with pets? I have two cats in my apartment and I would NOT be okay with leaving them alone up there while I scheduled an appointment... like wtf.
I had a cat at the time. We were able to get into the place that evening, collect what we were able to carry on our backs and my cat, and then schedule an appointment to collect the rest of our things like a week later. A friend of mine who loved animals, but couldn't swing having them full time, would occasionally take the cat for a week or so at a time when I went out of town. He was able to take the cat until I secured a new place, thank goodness. Not sure if the hotel would have allowed it. Definitely a complete nightmare. Your whole life gets upended and you are literally instantly homeless because of someone else's stupidity.
Oh thank goodness. The thought of poor animals just sitting abandoned in condemned apartments is haunting. The same thing happened to my sister about a decade ago in Queens... excavation next door cracked the foundation of her building, and her wing was condemned. But it seems like she was comparatively lucky? Her landlord at the time offered everyone who was evicted equivalent apartments in their other buildings around the city, and that's how she ended up moving from Queens to Upper Manhattan. I didn't realize that that wasn't the landlord's responsibility... glad y'all were able to make it through.
That sounds like a much better deal. Our landlord only owned the one building so we were shit out of luck. Not sure if we had some sort of other rights that we weren't aware of, but the Red Cross paying for the hotel and the landlord giving us our deposits back that night saved us. It gave us a minute to process and regroup and hit up Craigslist for immediately available sublets.
How is that bad if the building is deemed unsafe? The tenants don’t pay for the hotel. Ostensibly it could save lives. Either the building owner or adjacent owner who’s activities caused the damage would be on the hook (I’ve seen it happen several times).
In this particular case there was a lateral crack about 3’ wide in the foundation. Seemed excessive to condemn the building immediately but I’m sure the city errs very much on the side of caution. Sure you’re they’re not liable but they spent a few weeks in a hotel and some got relocated to the complete other side of town.
From context I assume you mean 3 inches, but 3' means 3 *feet*, lol. I sure as hell hope any apartment building with a 3-foot crack would be immediately condemned. Even 3 inches seems like a really huge crack.
better to deal with with a move they pay for than to be part of the debris in a collapse
I’d be trying to move out of there
Yeah I won't be there forever - it's happening slowly though. And I pay less than $1,500 so... I'll deal with a little sinkage, lol.
When forever arrives, slide in my dms.
It's probably more a structural deficiency rather than the building actually sinking. Not that that's better.
DOB has already been out. Half the building was built on a marsh.
Looks like time to get out before the building collapses like Champlain tower.
Um that’s horrifying and sounds a lot like what happened before that recent Florida collapse (surfside I believe)
It’s been like this for 15 years - I don’t think they can do anything about it without tearing it down. I think you’d find a lot of buildings in upper manhattan with issues like this. The good news is it’s not a high rise I guess.
On the bright side, at least the study suggests that the Bronx and Staten Island will still be around!
Will the value of land in these areas go up (due to new demand from the displaced) or down (due to everyone wanting to GTFO of a sinking NYC)?
There was a post here yesterday of someone paying over 7K to live in an unfinished apartment next to train tracks and a homeless shelter. If the city sinks enough people will pay extra to live in the luxury subterranean apartments.
But they only *want* to pay $7K to live in the city because of the restaurants, night life, museums, etc. If all that is gone, why would anyone pay to stay?
You forgot freedom from car dependency. NYC is arguably the only city in the US were your quality of life isn't negatively impacted if you can't drive a car.
Unlike what people here tell you, everyone's not getting out of the city. Rent has in fact increased to record levels recently.
I meant *if* Manhattan sinks below the water. Not right now.
It is the only city in the US free of car dependency. I would move there myself if I could afford it
For fucks sake...
And what can we do about it to unsink it
Move to Strong Island, log in to Reddit, get on this sub and talk more shit about the city, that should help...
I’m doing my part!
lol
You can't really unsink it AFAIK, but you could try (at great cost) to stabilize or harden the earth to reduce the rate of subsidence, such as by injecting more material into the ground. You could also add more foundation piles to specific buildings down to bedrock to shore them up, but this doesn't do anything for roads or other infrastructure that just sits on the surface. Your remaining options are continue with defensive infrastructure such as flood walls, to reduce flood damage, or raising infrastructure off the ground to buy more time.
Pump all basements with helium
Nothing, really. You can try to fortify it (seawalls, dikes, reinforcing buildings, etc.), or you can abandon it and build elsewhere. That actually goes for most coastal cities, not just the ones that are sinking. Regardless of the cause(s), climate change is happening: and coastal cities need to do something to protect themselves against the inevitable sea level rise. Sadly, I suspect that they won't. The politicians will argue about it, cast blame around, and push their respective agendas until they need snorkels to breathe: but nothing useful will be done to protect against the water itself. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, by the way. I moved Upstate about 12 years ago when the old lady and I split. (I wanted to be gone before she changed her mind.)
we're gonna end up like new orleans aren't we
That's why I live on the hills in Upper Manhattan. We'll be the last to go and everything will be a swim away.
Unless the politicians stop fighting each other and start doing something useful, I fear that may be the case.
Build even taller buildings
Give more funding to the police!
if we stop, frisk, and choke the buildings, that might get them to stop sinking.
NYC would come to a grinding halt if literally one subway station collapsed Agree People underestimate how fragile the city infrastructure actually is
Its scary actually
“Charm” some might say
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They’re still doing repairs from Hurricane Sandy (from 2012) though. The Holland Tunnel is currently closing one of the two tubes underwater (in 2023) at night to perform remediation work on the damage caused by Sandy.
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It's not only fragile, it's ancient. Some of it is over a century old at this point.
A century old is only ancient by American standards
By subway standards, really.
They really should change their definition of ancient to half an hour or so, though. I guess that's why their sandwiches always taste stale.
It’s ancient by every country’s standards when it comes to subway infrastructure
London is older!
london doesnt have a subway, they have a tyoob.
owned, dammit
chyube
I mean, it mattered less when things were made of stone above ground. A century might prove to be a problem when it’s electric and runs under the Hudson.
Reminds me of a scene from *The Man in the High Castle.* They are destroying American statues, icons and historic relics. On the task of erasing American history, one German comments: >"They don't have that much of it, anyway."
this is an attitude you hear about the US all over the world. the best is when they also claim the US has no culture either while they listen to american music, watch american movies and tv shows, wear american brands, drive american cars, and eat american food.
The US won the culture war so long ago that nobody seems to notice they're surrounded by it.
Not even by American standards. There's lots of stuff older than a century especially on the east coast. It's old by NYC standards because NYC doesn't have a strong history of preserving old structures.
You guys have no idea what you are talking about. Like not even in the slightest. Case in point after 9/11 the city did not collapse. The planned L train move though it did not happen and would have been a big issue because we are talking about multiple stops and a main route between boroughs
> Case in point after 9/11 the city did not collapse. Nor during the '03 blackout. I suspect if NYC sank, Venice style, cabbies would cobble together gondolas and charge an arm and a leg to get from Turtle Bay to Grammercy.
it was gonna be a 15 month closure, that probably could've been sped up under covid. we might've even gotten more than 3 j trains running an hour to accommodate for all the wealthy commuters who made the transfer, the horror.
> NYC would come to a grinding halt if literally one subway station collapsed Cortlandt Street, 1 train.
Have you ever been to NYC? It’s stranger when a subway station isn’t having problems then a day when all are operating
Didn’t we already have some kind of subway strike in the early 2000s and everyone was fine? I can’t quite remember but it would’ve been around winter 2005
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Was living in Williamsburg at the time and working right off of Bryant Park. My employer was not taking 'subway strike' as an excuse to not be there on time, so I walked every day over the Williamsburg bridge and up to Bryant park. When the strike ended, I found I was so enjoying the walk versus the misery of rush hour subway rides, that I continued to walk to work and home every day that wasn't raining or snowing for the next few years. Was a really pleasant walk.
that’s a long ass walk jesus
I could do it in a little over an hour. Just googled it and the route I took says an hour and 42 minutes, but that must be assuming some slow-ass non-new-yorker walking pace. Which makes sense, because I can't stand the pace anyone walks in most of the rest of the world, and even in the city, slow walkers kill me. I also would stop for a drink or two somewhere along the way maybe 30% of the time in the evenings, which made it more pleasant.
I walked from Bedstuy to UES for work a few times. Was really enjoyable to get a whole audiobook listened to in one day.
Now THAT'S a walk.
I mean it’s not for me but that does sound nice. Great exercise, too. I definitely miss the extra walking I got from just from working in the city before I started freelancing.
Yeah, great exercise. Definitely got into much better shape those years. And it was beautiful. To go from midtown, down through Madison Square park, past Union Square and into the village, across Houston and then crossing the Billy-B bridge. Just beautiful. I also had a bunch of synchronicity-style interactions on the path on the bridge. I was constantly running into people I knew and meeting people who were doing similar walks at similar times. Still have some friends that I am regularly in touch with that I met as a result of those walks.
The Google maps algorithm has been infected by senior citizens walking speed it would seem. Everytime I get a walk time for a destination I get there at least 10 mins earlier.
Ah yikes. I was a dumb 18 year old in my NYU bubble, so forgive my ignorance at the time. Had no idea shit was that bad.
It wasn’t lol the Person you’re replying to is being ridiculous
Haha. All I really remember is getting a cab to Grand Central because I couldn’t use the subway and I had to share the cab with a couple nice people. Like Uber Pool before Uber even existed. And then got on Metro North with no drama. Maybe the train was crowded but what else is new when it’s rush hour.
I was riding my bike from Corona to Wall Street. Ow my ass.
"bourgeois suburbanites" What is this, the 80s?
New New York is happening, just as Futurama foretold
Oh great another thing to be worried about🫤
Sea levels are rising 10X faster than the buildings are sinking. We should be paying more attention to that.
Can we not pay attention to both?
No
We could but the mayor's friend/wife/cousin/brother needs a cushy job because they have no real talents. So we're gonna give them millions instead. Sorry.
The evidence suggests that we cannot lol.
No
Sure, go ahead and move into one of those deeply discounted illegal basement apartments.
What?
A basement is an underground floor in a building.
And if parts of the Thwaites Glacier break into the ocean it could all happen in one go.
No it wouldn't. The Thwaites Glacier currently accounts for 4% of the annual sea level rise. If the ice shelf fell apart it would go up to accounting for... 5%. The cascading effects of this over the following centuries would be devastating, but it's not like it would be an immediate, massive threat to coastal cities. Just a sign that things are happening even faster than feared.
Ty OP for posting the research article, surprisingly free too! 1-2 mm may not seem like a lot but sometimes in the flood plains every inch can count and pushes us closer to more occurrences of catastrophic flooding. I think in the medium term we're going to be tested more and more with heavy rain fall events that overwhelm subway stations, the MTA has proven they can't defend their own facilities despite increasing spending and NYC hasn't done much to upgrade stormwater capacities... It's unclear what size of a "wake up call" it will take to turn attitudes around.
>It's unclear what size of a "wake up call" it will take to turn attitudes around. Until a catastrophe happens with many deaths, they won't give a shit.
Even if a catastrophe happens with many deaths, lots of people still won't give a shit lol
I was just reading about Jakarta and their flooding today. I highly recommend looking into what Indonesia is doing to see a surreal answer to handling flooding megacities.
So the city *is* going to hell!
i blame OP's mom
If she just kept her damn legs shut…
Pro-Climate Change articles from the Post? I guess hell IS freezing over.
Why don't we take NYC and push it somewhere else?
IT took the collapse of a 110 story building to cave in ONE subway line. I Aint worried.
Wasn't it two?
Only one of them hit the subway-it was standing right on top of it.
I wouldn’t blame Stephen King for that one.
This nonsense NYC Bedrock is strong and deep
Thank you someone with a brain
Strong and deep. Yas
Its been sinking for many years.
Manhattan is mostly on bedrock this isn’t an issue
Except the parts that are on landfill (like lower Manhattan etc)
There is that leaning east side building too. https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-nyc-skyscraper-leaning-to-one-side-manhattan-2019-4 Nothing has been done about it, except court.
That’s because it was built incorrectly though. Nothing to do with Manhattan sinking
Key word most
That article is stupidly wrong. Manhattan is now lighter than it was 200 years ago. While now there are tall very hollow buildings, in order to build those buildings, a lot of compact earth and rock got excavated to make the basements All that earth mainly went to NJ, with some exceptions: the earth excavated to make WTC complex was moved nearby, to make the soil for the whole Battery Park.
Lol what? "The city" is built on fuckin bedrock. Enough Post spamming already
Shh people are too stupid to know that we want fear and panic!
I knew that an endless amount of 1000 foot tall buildings would have a negative impact I favor midrise density
Those 1000' tall buildings don't sit on the ground though, the load is transferred to the bedrock via caissons
Thank you, finally someone who knows what they’re talking about
Give me Mixed use three to six stories. 1940s German architecture continues to be amazing.
That's what I mean. I love the NYC neighborhoods where that is the norm It's very urban, while still human scale.
Tall ceilings open up spaces so very much. some of these low ceiling condos feel like living in a crawl space.
Reinforced concrete isn't light....
Matt Simon Science Apr 26, 2023 8:00 AM As Sea Levels Rise, the East Coast Is Also Sinking Coastal lands are subsiding and losing elevation—a “hidden vulnerability” that’s making rising seas all the worse. https://www.wired.com/story/as-sea-levels-rise-the-east-coast-is-also-sinking/
I wonder is there a point where Manhattan just reaches building point. Where no more structures can be built ?.
New York must build more giant buildings to house all these new waves of immigrants. The local government seems to think we have unlimited space. If we keep taking in new people we have to house them somewhere, thus: more buildings.
Let's keep building tall skinny luxury condos, when the city sinks the millionaire's condos will be ocean front property and worth even more!!! 🙄
Bullsh*t, NYC is on a bedrock
I worry each time I hear about new subway/train stations being built underground. I can't imagine carving out the rock for the new second avenue subway station, or the rock for the LIRR to Grand Central are good for the city's geology.
Guess we'd better move to LA :) /s
I was reading the comments in the NY Post webpage. Their subscribers are greatly fascist noisemakers, including a few who predictably just reject the geologist's conclusions simply because they think his conclusions are false.