The Emergency Was Always Underground

How decades of documented risk were ignored while a convenient emergency took center stage.

The steam plant and the steam tunnel were never two problems. They were one system. They were only separated later, when separating them made development easier and responsibility harder to pin down.

To understand how Roosevelt Island arrived at a moment where a twelve-year dormant building is suddenly labeled an emergency, while a structurally compromised tunnel beneath our feet remains politely sidelined, you have to start with what was known, when it was known, and who chose to act on it.

One System, Conveniently Divided

For decades, the steam plant, steam tunnel, east seawall, and hospital complex functioned as a single integrated infrastructure. Steam generated at the south-center end traveled north through a tunnel that also doubled as part of the seawall, protecting the shoreline and supporting what would later become residential development.

When Goldwater Hospital was cleared to make way for Cornell Tech, the City solved the valuable part of the equation and walked away from the rest. Cornell received clean land. The City retained the steam plant and tunnel, at least on paper. The State inherited the land lease and the residents living above it. What no one inherited was clear responsibility.

That decision split an engineered system into political pieces. From that point on, the steam tunnel was no longer an asset. It was a liability. And liabilities, when shared, tend to sink quietly.

Before we continue, it’s important to understand the difference between the steam plant and the steam tunnel. Here is a brief recap:

The steam tunnel runs beneath the island, connecting the former steam plant to Coler Hospital, and stretches along the Queens-facing side of Roosevelt Island. It also functions as part of the seawall, and while it once carried steam, it has not been operational or maintained since around 2013, increasing concern about long-term structural risk.

The steam plant is a decommissioned industrial building that once generated steam for the island’s hospitals and has been inactive since 2013. It shows no visible signs of immediate collapse and is not adjacent to residential buildings, though it sits above the steam tunnel and near other critical infrastructure, including the subway and the Queensboro Bridge.

Twenty Years of Warnings Underground

The first documented warnings about the steam tunnel are not recent and they are not speculative. A federal engineering study from 2001 identified deterioration in the Roosevelt Island seawall, including sections where the steam tunnel is structurally integral. That is the earliest public, technical record we can point to, and it matters because it predates Cornell, predates the plant’s closure, and predates the current emergency language by decades.

Over the years, the tunnel continued to appear in engineering assessments and internal discussions because it posed a real risk. It is underground, expensive, and difficult. Failure there threatens the promenade, adjacent buildings, and critical infrastructure. It also threatens no developer’s timeline in a visible way.

Credit where it is due. Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation raised awareness. It put the tunnel on agendas. It commissioned studies. That matters.

But let’s be precise. The tunnel is not RIOC property. RIOC could not compel remediation. What followed was a familiar pattern on Roosevelt Island: public funds spent on designs that go nowhere because ownership remains unresolved and the bill remains unwelcome. Awareness rose. Action did not.

Meanwhile, development continued above the tunnel.

The Emergency That Surfaced Late

As concerns about its condition accumulated quietly in reports and committee discussions, real estate moved in the opposite direction. Developers were publicly quoted in notices tied to the ground lease extension, and speculative plans for the steam plant’s future circulated for years, long before any hint of an emergency designation. During that same period, the language around the tunnel softened. What had been described in engineering terms as a structural concern gradually lost urgency in public framing, even as the risks remained unchanged. The result was a familiar inversion: the infrastructure with a documented history of concern receded into the background, while land with development potential steadily moved closer to resolution.

Contrast that long record with the steam plant. The plant was decommissioned in 2013 when Goldwater closed. For years afterward, public discussion consisted largely of rumors and reuse fantasies. What it did not include was a comparable forensic drumbeat warning of imminent danger.

The first formal, public movement toward demolition appears only in 2025, when committee agendas and agency briefings began to frame the plant as an emergency. That framing collapsed under scrutiny at the Operations Advisory Committee meeting documented by Eleanor Rivers in An Emergency, Apparently.

A skilled architect asked for evidence. None was produced. The urgency could not be explained. The work, we learned, had already begun.

The tunnel carried decades of documented concern without urgency. The plant acquired urgency the moment timing aligned. . After all, ribbon cuttings are far easier to stage above ground.

Governance Without Evidence

Public narratives do not form by accident. In multiple committee meetings, senior board member Howard Polivy stated that the steam tunnel was not urgent and redirected attention toward the steam plant. Those statements were not accompanied by engineering evidence. They were not challenged in real time. They shaped how risk was framed.

When senior voices downplay one danger and elevate another without substantiation, process follows narrative. Eventually, emergency declarations do too.

This is not about intent. It is about consequence.

The Pattern, Plainly Stated

The tunnel is underground, expensive, and difficult.
The plant is visible, easier, and development-adjacent.
Only one was labeled an emergency.

That is the story. Not a demolition. Not a meeting. Not even a building.

The emergency is underground. Apparently.