Some Roosevelt Island Residents And Businesses As Well As Public Safety Department And RIOC Without Verizon Phone Service Since Last Week Due To Cornell Tech Campus Construction Phone Cable Cut

Some Roosevelt Island residents, businesses as well as the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) have been without Verizon phone service since last July 8 due to cable being accidentally cut at the Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island campus construction site.

According to this July 8 RIOC Advisory:

Please be advised that the Public Safety Department (550 Main Street) and the RIOC Offices (591 Main Street) are currently experiencing a telephone outage. To contact Public Safety during this outage, please call 212-832-4547 or 212-832-4548.

An advisory will be issued once service is restored. We appreciate your patience while we resolve this issue.

Roosevelt Island's Island House Management sent this July 9 memo to residents reporting:

...Verizon has confirmed there is a main phone cable failure in the area which has caused widespreaad outage throughout the Roosevelt Island area. Currently, all of our building phone lines are down...

... Verizon indicates the repair date could be as late as 7/21/15 and even that is not guaranteed...

The Twitterverse asked:

Anyone else on Roosevelt Island experiencing an outage in their Verizon landline service? (Island House, specifically?) @Rooseveltisland

— Tavie rhymes w/gravy (@TheRealTavie) July 9, 2015

Amalgamated Bank was closed last week due to the Verizon phone cable cut

but according to its web site today:

Please be advised that phone service to our Roosevelt Island branch is temporarily suspended due to a cable service outage on the island. The branch is open for business; however, customers attempting to reach the branch by phone should instead contact our Customer Service Call Center at (800) 662-0860.

The Island Wine & Spirits Store is not able to accept credit card transactions but only cash due to the Verizon phone cable cut.

The Verizon phone service disruption is not affecting all of Roosevelt Island.

A Cornell Tech spokesperson said today:

One of the subcontractors working for Cornell Tech accidentally cut a cable which has affected Verizon service on Roosevelt Island. We have been in contact with Verizon who is working to restore service. We apologize and are doing everything we can to get Verizon to restore service as soon as possible.‎

In January 2014, Cornell Tech contractors cut an undocumented water main pipe during demolition of Goldwater Hospital. During January 29, 2014 meeting of the Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island Construction and Community Task Force:

... I asked Cornell NYC Tech Director of Capital Planning Andrew Winters and his contractors what is being done to insure similar occurrences do not happen again.

Mr. Winters asked Ted Musho, Vice President of Tishman Construction, who is overseeing the site work to explain what happened and measures being taken to prevent it from occurring again. According to Mr. Musho:

... metal detectors and ground penetrating radar...

will be used to prevent future similar occurrences but:

...the reality of it is that you got 70 years worth of utility work that is laid on top of the site that is not well documented. Its going to take alot of effort on our part when we go through there to do this...

Mr. Winters added:

... we've done about 12 or so borings around the site without incident ...    its an unfortunate occurrence. We're going to try and avoid it and do whatever we can in the future by being more aggressive...

Mr. Winters also explained that part of the construction project is to:

...upgrade every utility that's down there. Electric, water, sewer, storm, everything. Part of the upgrading is moving it into the right of way so that it is fully mapped and full accessible for the future.

Here's video of the full discussion,

the latest Cornell Tech Roosevelt Island Campus Project Update:

July 10 - July 24 Look Ahead

Roadwork and Central Utility Plant - Roadway work is occurring along the north transverse road with water line, sewer pipe and manhole installation taking place. Also at the north transverse road, Boiler-matic work will be occurring in preparation for the turnover on Saturday, 25 July. Work is also taking place on the east road with sewer, storm, and electrical utilities installation ongoing.

Co-Location Building – Excavation and foundation work is ongoing. This includes drilling rock anchors.

Residential Building – Site Preparation is still ongoing in the form of surveying and perimeter erosion control. Excavation for foundations is underway. Slabs and interior footings are also occurring.

Bloomberg Center – Basement Slab forming is ongoing with installation of utility chases and utilities happening concurrently. Basement foundation walls in the south section of the building is ongoing.

and scenes from June campus groundbreaking ceremony.