This family of LI sandhogs built Grand Central Madison's tunnel

When Peter Gluszak, of Hicksville, rides the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Madison, he is taking a trip down memory lane. Gluszak, 68, was one of the sandhogs — workers who excavate underground space — who helped make the East Side station a reality.

While most rush-hour riders may have the daily grind on their minds, for those who built  the tunnel and terminal, the construction remains vivid. 

“I loved that job. It was the greatest job I ever had,” said Gluszak, who is also a home improvement company owner. “Everybody cared about the job, each other. You’ll never find another group like that in your life. You bond together.”

Grand Central Madison opened Jan. 25, 2023, as the largest passenger rail terminal built nationwide in 67 years, offering a major commuting change for thousands of Long Islanders.

For Long Island’s sandhogs like the extended Gluszak family, the $11.1 billion public works initiative will be a lifelong source of pride.

Gluszak remembers when the only train in the tunnel was the one that carried bedrock away as he and other workers mined the space.

“You feel like you’re doing something special, something different than most people,” said Joe Ryan, 41, of Salisbury, a hamlet in Hempstead Town. He is Gluszak’s nephew and also worked on the project. “When I use the train to Grand Central Madison, I look out the window. I remember being there with the concrete.”

Doug Faulkner, 41, of Hicksville, also Gluszak’s nephew, talked about “the camaraderie” of working together on the subterranean job.

“I wouldn’t compare it to the military,” Ryan said before pausing. “But it kind of is.”

GRAND CENTRAL MADISON 

Long Island Association president and CEO Matthew Cohen calls Grand Central Madison “one of the greatest modern infrastructure achievements in the United States” involving thousands of workers. Gov. Kathy Hochul recently described her own experience.

“You come up the escalator,” she said of the vista that greets travelers at the top. “It’s heavenly.”

Passenger Diana Linehan, 60, of Nesconset, who retired after working for Spectrum, called it a “great project, a great train station.”

“It’s super convenient for folks who work on the East Side, but live on Long Island. The escalator, even though it’s intimidating, is awesome.”

The 700,000-square-foot terminal contains four platforms and eight tracks adorned with mosaics by artists Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith. It is the first terminal to connect the LIRR, Metro-North Railroad and East Side subway, and it is now the third-busiest commuter railroad hub in the country, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“I was there this morning. It’s breathtaking,” said LIRR president Rob Free, a Port Jefferson resident who rides the train daily to work in Jamaica. “It’s a beautiful terminal.” 

Those aesthetics of the terminal have been honored by the architecture and design community.

The station in December was awarded UNESCO’s 2024 Prix Versailles Interior Award for the World’s Most Beautiful Passenger Station . 

Behind the project is the work of the tradespeople, including the sandhogs, who toiled in an underground universe for years.

“I have great admiration for them,” Free said of the workers. “They opened up a massive terminal in the busiest city of North America.”

The LIRR on average carries over 260,000 weekday riders, following a 40% increase in service due to Grand Central Madison, according to Free.

“It allowed us to provide a 56% increase in reverse peak service, which is important to Long Island,” Free said of the station welcoming 930 train trips daily. “We need that labor pool.”

WHAT SANDHOGS DO

Sandhogs, who typically belong to the union Local 147, performed the initial work known as tunnel boring before other tradespeople came in. There are currently about 700 sandhogs in the New York area, according to the union. 

The term sandhog dates back to workers who built the caissons (chambers of compressed air) that made way for the foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge

“We’re urban miners,” Ryan said. “We dig the subway tunnels. We did the water tunnels. We do passageway tunnels, train tunnels, any tunnel, gas, sewers.”

Being a sandhog often runs in the family. Gluszak noted his son Chris; his father Frank; his father’s four brothers and his grandfather John Joseph Gluszak, all were sandhogs.

“He became a butcher, but he was a sandhog first,” Peter Gluszak said of his father. “The money was good, and it was interesting. But he got the bends and my mother told him to quit the job.”

It was while working underwater and building the Lincoln Tunnel (constructed between 1934 and 1957) that his father got the bends, also known as decompression sickness, a potentially fatal condition that can affect those like sandhogs who work in a compressed-air environment. Sandhogs have historically faced dangerous working conditions including potential tunnel collapses and respiratory illnesses, leading to serious injuries and deaths while building New York’s underground tubes.

While building one tunnel in 1916, a sandhog named Marshall Mabey was sucked through 12 feet of riverbed after a blowout of compressed air and shot four stories high, according to “Sandhogs: A History of the Tunnel Workers of New York” by Paul E. Delaney.

Two others perished, but Mabey survived and went on to work for another 25 years, even enlisting his two sons to become sandhogs.

So why do they do it?

“It’s a good-paying job,” said Bob Gluszak, 76, of Bellerose, Queens, Peter Gluszak’s uncle. “I got a good job with my father and brothers. When I was the right age, I enlisted in being a sandhog.”

Those interviewed estimated the pay around $63 per hour.

ON-THE-JOB TRAINING

Sandhogs often remember the first day on the job as they enter the underground world. “The smell,” Peter Gluszak said. “You can’t forget the tunnel’s unique smell of dirt.”

He recalled that his first time was one day after his 18th birthday, when he admits he may have partied a little too hard the night before. “My friends took me out drinking,” he said. “I didn’t know you needed eight hours’ sleep to be a sandhog. They handed me a shovel. It was hard work.”

Ryan remembered looking for a staircase after being told to go downstairs before finding a cage called the Alimak, which he said is like an elevator. He described getting out of the lift like walking into a “cathedral.”

You can’t forget the tunnel’s unique smell of dirt.

Peter Gluszak, sandhog

He said it can be hard to put their world into words.

“Ever see ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’?” he asked. “That’s what it looks like when you go down there.”

The potential dangers are never far from their minds.

Ryan was working on a catwalk when he had a close call. “The guy with the remote hit the wrong button. I got squeezed by the drill,” he said of the tunnel boring machine, or TBM. “My hard hat split in half, but I was fine.”

Bob Gluszak, who had a quadruple bypass, believes years of breathing tunnel air takes its toll. Some workers he has known over the years, he said, have gotten silicosis, also known as miner’s lung.

DIGGING A GIG ECONOMY

While there’s one word for the profession, there are many jobs within it. Bob Gluszak, who said he spent at least seven years working on Grand Central Madison and East Side Access, said he worked as a “bottom bell,” providing communications from above to workers in the shaft, as well as working deep underground.

In addition to sandhogs, electricians, plumbers, painters, tilers, basic laborers and many others worked on the station after the sandhogs were done.

Projects end and sandhogs search for the next job, often working in other professions in between. “That’s the thing,” Peter Gluszak said, noting he relies on home contracting when there is not sandhog work. “We were always getting laid off.”

Ryan said it’s “feast or famine” and what he calls “kind of the best part-time job in the world.” He added that his “uncle had a nice run on Water Tunnel Three, 30 years of work off and on,” referring to the 60-mile water tunnel that runs from Yonkers to Queens.

Sandhog work takes time. Peter Gluszak said they dug 100 feet daily in three eight-hour shifts, “but it’s miles and miles.” Bob Gluszak said they covered from 25 to 40 feet per shift.

“It’s all granite,” he said of Manhattan’s rock underbelly. “That’s why New York, Manhattan, is standing upright.”

Although dynamite was once the tool of choice, these days they primarily use a tunnel boring machine. “Picture a worm that goes through the ground,” Peter Gluszak said. “It shoots back the dirt.” They then shovel the debris or transport it in small vehicles to conveyor belts leading to dump trucks. 

While the work is hard, it brings a sense of accomplishment. “I used to spray-paint my initials,” Peter Gluszak said. “Even though I knew it was going to be covered with cement, I signed my name to everything.”

END OF THE TUNNEL

As the two-year anniversary arrives, those who worked on the tunnel and Grand Central Madison sometimes look back on opening day, which was decades in the making, with a sense of accomplishment. “It was surreal, amazing, nerve wracking,” said Free. “You’re in disbelief that the day is finally here.”

He said the LIRR continues to make improvements, seeking to add signage and benches.

In its first year, more than 17 million riders used Grand Central Madison, which the MTA said now has a 99% customer satisfaction rating. The transit authority opened a new customer seating area near 47th Street in October.

Peter Gluszak said riding the train through a tunnel he helped build gives him the sense he helped make a difference.

“I went in two months ago to see the finished product and was amazed. Being part of it is unbelievable,” he said. “People don’t think about it. They take it for granted. They hop on a train and don’t think about the massive work that went into this project.”