"I've got to put a manhole in!" (A manhole is a vault that allows technicians to gain access to underground cables without tearing up the street. The entrance is covered by, yes, a manhole cover).
And our Fleet Chamber adventure was also to be frustrated: dozens of workmen in hi-vis jackets were swarming around the Fleet manholes, putting in a late-night maintenance shift on the tunnels.
The police put the cover of the manhole back in place, trapping the narrator underground.
Then authorities put tons of landfill beneath the manhole to make it impossible to reach the interior.
Firefighters came to the area about 6 15 p.m. to put out a fire inside a manhole on 43rd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, Deputy Fire Chief James Leonard said.
Stevens and a group of women walk through the sewer and put on sunglasses before climbing out of manholes and shafts.
The work was then put through the further ordeal of being taken out into the streets of London and battered onto drains and manholes covers to create an imprint on the canvas one even reveals the words "Thames Water" stamped on it.
And at 7 30 a.m. yesterday, gas from a manhole fire on Schenectady Avenue led to the evacuation of at least six houses while 60 firefighters from 12 units fought the fire, whcih spread through a duct to one house on the block but was quickly put out, said Firefighter Paul Iannizzotto, a department spokesman.
Firing at 200 yards, he put a.50-caliber bullet clear through the one-inch rolled steel used on most armored military vehicles, then through a three-and-a-half-inch-thick cast-iron manhole cover, and finally through a piece of three-quarter-inch bullet-resistant glass.
One official said that the increased security, which will include removing mailboxes, sealing manhole covers and putting the department's bomb-sniffing and other dogs to work, was not prompted by specific intelligence, but by the two recent bombings in Istanbul.
