Jesi Taylor
July 12, 2026
My great-great-grandpa John I was an incredible artist who wrote and illustrated notebooks for decades. Most of them contained hand-drawn maps and diagrams of underground structures, equipment, and geological features he encountered and worked closely with as a Sandhog.
I still read them religiously. They’re cherished treasures in my family and partly the reason why I made it out of that (manufactured) disaster alive.
Even though I’m not a Sandhog myself, my entire life revolves around infrastructure. Not only because of my scientific research areas of focus and family history, but also because most of the special interests that consume my brain are in some way related to infrastructure. Which is, I’m sure, the result of some sort of neurobiological-social-ancestral feedback loop.
My mom’s side of the family were all farmers until my mom moved from North Carolina to Harlem in the late 80s. She was an artist, a painter. She died when I was in high school. Heroin overdose.
She loved John I’s notebooks and we’d recreate images from them together on canvas. The notebooks inspired a lot of her later paintings.
They also made my escape from the tunnels possible.
I wish there was.
July 11, 2026
I wanted to be a sixth-generation Sandhog. I grew up hearing so many stories from the people in my family who helped build the veins of this city. Some of the stories were passed down from a hundred years ago, when my great-great-great-grandpa Patrick worked on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The spring before my great-great-grandpa was born, Patrick’s buddy John died of Caissons Disease. He named my great-great-grandpa after John and every son after him was named John, too. My dad was John IV and I would have been the fifth, but I became Patty III (after my aunt Patricia, my dad’s twin sister, and my great-great-great-grandpa Patrick).
All of our family’s Sandhogs knew a construction project really well. Patrick I, as I already mentioned, worked on the Brooklyn Bridge. John I was part of the 1906 Tunnel Workers Strike and worked on the Joralemon Street Tunnel. He was deafened on the job. John II worked on Lincoln Tunnel #1. John III worked on City Tunnel #3. He was deafened on the job. My dad and aunt worked on City Tunnel #3 for a little while, but Patty died on the job. My dad was deafened during the accident that took my aunt’s life and his legs.
I’ve been taking care of my dad with my partner since my twenties.
July 10, 2026
The first time it happened, I watched the train and tunnel rise to the water’s surface from my bedroom window.
It was only a matter of time before the subsurface heat island effect imploded a subway station and forced hundreds of thousands of gallons of salt water through the weathering bedrock, sand, and silt holding the underground infrastructure in place.
I wrote about these dangers in multiple peer-reviewed articles for decades. Local politicians and scientists were thankful I wasn’t talking about my data and research–only publishing in journals, newspapers, and zines–because it was bad for business and shed light on their violence and neglect.
A mute expert in climate disaster risk management is a non-threatening one. Until they find a way to reach and convince more people of the truth. Or until they’re forced to.
The latter is what happened to me which is why I’m writing this testimony now. From Rikers.
The second time it happened I was, unfortunately, there. On the train. In a station as it imploded.
If it wasn’t for the wisdom of the Sandhogs I would’t have made it out alive.