Watson Conduit Construction

Circa 1985, Photos by Steve Jensen, who worked in the network group in the 1980s. Two trenches connect Columbia University's Watson Lab at 612 West 115th Street (and other Columbia buildings on the same block) with the main campus across Broadway. The South trench (designed by Steve) was dug in early 1985 and housed four conduits, one of which initially contained the fat yellow Ethernet coax cable connecting Watson to the recently established campus Ethernet backbone, replacing an expensive leased-line connection that had been in place since about 1970. The North trench remains a mystery. The photos were all taken within the space of a week.

  1. Image 1 (Start here and then use Next/Prev links)
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  8. Image 8 (Ta-Kome)
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Frank da Cruz / fdc@columbia.edu / Columbia University Computing History / May 2002