Builders Plan Blasting Soon At Library Site

The blasting scheduled to begin August 1 to prepare the foundations of the Pusey Library will probably be delayed until mid-August, the Building and Grounds Department's project supervisor for the library said yesterday.

Robert Burbank, the supervisor, said the blasting will disrupt the surrounding area. "If you are in an adjacent building with the windows open you aren't going to talk on the phone," he said. "And with the windows closed, you won't talk to anyone in the same room". He explained that the noise will probably be audible on Oxford Street, quite apparent in the Yard, and very disturbing to people in adjacent buildings.

But Richard Russo, the project manager at Bond Brothers Construction Company, the general contractor for excavation work and utilities preparation, said that "I don't think you'll find any of the drilling to be that noisy" because the company has "whisper compressors."

He added that some drilling will begin next week to make test holds and to anchor diagonal cables into the rock underneath 17 Quincy Street.

Drilling Worse

Burbank said drilling is more noisy than blasting. "The blasting is going to be a relief [compared with drilling] ... it will be just a little thump, but then there will be more drilling," he said.

Russo said that the blasting and drilling should continue until the end of September and that his firm hopes to leave the site by mid-October.

Both Russo and Seymour Newburger, engineer estimator at the A.A. Will Corporation, the library's excavation contractor, said yesterday the contractors might have to conduct less blasting than anticipated.

Burbank said that the effect of the noise problem on the Summer School was considered, but that "no pressure has been applied to me to do anything but to get as much done for the fall opening."

He explained that the University began construction on June 18, immediately following commencement, because it wants to complete the noisier aspects of construction before registration.

Thomas E. Crooks, director of the Summer School, explained yesterday that the registrar had scheduled classes as far from the construction site as possible and said that he doubted Emerson Hall was being used at all. The registrar's office confirmed that Emerson had not been scheduled for Summer School use, but added that one philosophy class may have moved there and that the Alumni College used the building.

Crooks said that the newly constructed Science Center has helped take up the classroom load and discounted the trouble the construction causes.

He explained that the University schedules much of its construction during the summer, but that most of the time it helps the Summer School with its scheduling problems.

"They had to start it sometime and why not during the summer," he said