Update: There was a water main break nearby in July of 2020.

I imagine everyone in the St. Louis region, and perhaps even some outside, heard about the breakage of the 30 inch cast iron water main under Lindell Boulevard, just east of Union Boulevard where Park Road cuts off for a short distance. I went to take a look on the Saturday after the breakage, and the foreman kindly explained to me the intricacies of the break, and how they were repairing the main.

The water main brings water from the Mississippi River water works, and as can be seen in the two pictures above, there is a whole labyrinth of other pipes and sewers cutting through the subterranean area. There is an older water main, if I remember correctly, as well as an old sewer, which you can see a portion that was picked up by a backhoe and then dropped, still intact, but crumpled. There were no streetcar tracks to cut through, but what I found immensely fascinating, and perhaps is difficult to see in my photographs, is that the original streetbed is approximately five feet below the modern street surface. I can only speculate that perhaps there was some substantial street grading in this portion of Lindell, as even in downtown and the oldest parts of the city I have not seen such a deep earliest level. I have seen this, and deeper, in cities such as Rome or London, but not in St. Louis.

Water came over the MetroLink tracks at one point, if you can believe that. I saw this tree, below, that looks like a man, sort of, when I walked back to my car.