I worked once with Habitat for Humanity. Why only once? Two reasons. One, I was too busy, and two, the quality of the housing being built for these people sucked. Now, today I go clicking over to the Globe to find this article on the Big Dig. As it turns out, all the tunnels have major structural flaws and will have to be repaired at what will undoubtedly be tremendous costs. Read the article HERE.

After this disspaointing and, frankly, enraging article, I decided to visit Nate’s website. He had a particularly good editorial linking his personal goings on with the fate of something called the High Line Railroad in Manhattan. I remember hearing about this a while back, but thanks to Nate’s article, I re-discovered the project’s amazing website. Click HERE to check it out.

What’s interesting about these two seemingly unrelated incidents is Quality. The High Line, built from 1929 – 1934, is still standing today, and is in fact strong enough to begin its second life as a unique public park. The Big Dig, which consisted of a construction period of roughly 15 years, is now just being completed (though anyone who actualy drives in Boston would harken to qualify the meaning of “complete.”) Anyway, it has now been discovered that large and critical sections of the project will have to be re-built! And it’s brand new!

So, over 75 years later, though our technical know how has increased, the quality of our work has decreased. Whereas the High Line will soon begin its new life, the new Central Artery Tunnels will already be undergoing major structural repairs. It’s a sad commentary on the nature of worksmanship and the larger ideal of public works projects in this country.