Newsday from New York, New York • 4

ta ir; am Traffic-snarling repairs to take week Avenue and Central Park West today. The area between 59th and 62nd Streets on Central Park West, normally one-way northbound, will become a two-way street while repair work continues, Schwarts said. He said new traffic lights and 25 traffic agents will be provided to make the detour work. Columbus Circle is located at the southwest corner, of Central Park, where Broadway, Eighth Avenue, Central Park South and Central Park West converge. The six-foot split in the pipe occurred yesterday just after 2 a.m., when most people were sleeping; and no one living near the break called to report a loss of water.

The broken main was shut off by 4:30 a.m., and a DEP crew excavated the area above the rupture to begin repair work Crews are replacing a 15-foot section of the pipe. i- Casey said it may be weeks before the cause of the By Sheryl McCarthy A 36-inch water main below Columbus Circle burst early yesterday morning, creating a 25-foot-long crater at 60th and Broadway and flooding the surrounding streets with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. Portions of Broadway and Columbus Avenue were flooded between 58th and 70th Streets, causing huge jams on the thoroughfares during the morning rush hour. The flooding essentially shut down subway service along the West Side and knocked out power in the 44-story Gulf Western Building at 15 Columbus Circle. Adding to the days, commuter woes, an electrical fire broke out yesterday afternoon in a Brooklyn subway tunnel.

Broadway between 60th and 62nd Streets remained closed to traffic yesterday evening, while Broadway from 62nd to 65th Streets was to remain open only for deliveries and local traf- Please see MAIN on Page 22 GettingAround Area of flooding 1. Southbound Broadway traffic will be diverted onto Columbus Avenue at 65th Street fic. Tina Casey, spokeswoman for the citys Department of Environmental Protection, said it would take about a day to replace the broken section of water main, and estimated that it would take about a week to repair the Btreet. It does appear that this part of Broadway will be lost for about a week, city Department of Transportation First Deputy Commissioner Saimnl Schwarts confirmed yesterday. Schwarts said that in order to handle the overflow traffic from the closed-off section of Broadway, traffic will be diverted to Columbus 2.

Broadway closed entirely from 60th to 62nd and to all but local traffic from 62nd to 65th. 3. Central Park West near Columbus Circle, which had been one-way -northbound, will be two-way until Broadway is reopened. Nawadw Km Smehuk Pedestrian hurdles a puddle on West 60th Street KfwilBy John PniWn The Ever wonder how 5,600,000 gallons of water end up in the subway and ruin the day? The answer is in history of two kinds: ancient and j- aggravating. Not surprisingly, the aggravating history is recent.

Such as last month. i'-i'. When the subway is flooded, the TA has no choice. 'but to pump out the water. It has pumps in tunnels throughout the system, and brings in portable hand pumps and its.

most powerful weapon a pump train. Yesterday morning, three brand new pump cars, capable of pushing out hundreds of thousands of gallons of water in hours, sat idle through the worst transit crisis of the year, according to reliable sources within the 'ta. Each of these cars cost $650,000. They were bought for flood crises. Pump Car PCOl was at the 207th Street When workers tried to move it to the scene of the floods, its brakes stuck in emergency, the sources said last night.

Pump Car PC02 was at the 239th Street Yard ini ailed in Bronx. On Sept. 20, the new pump car derailed i the Please see DWYER on Page 41 Transjt workers pump NewadayKen Bwchufc water out of a train subway tunnel yesterday 53rdLStraet and Seventh Avenue. i 7 nmwU MikKl i ota ia.x.11 i huoo ovte! nolliM brsdmri Lrs IxJjJD sjntf c-H '1 v- 4.