Municipal Journal & Public Works, 1911:
Albany, N.Y. – The work of constructing the new recreation pier at the foot of State street, Albany, began June 19. Thus far this summer the contractor has had but two days in which the water was low enough to permit the work to be done. The piles on which the concrete sea wall rests are nearly all driven on all sides of the pier, and this will be followed by driving the sheet piles. These are constructed of three heavy planks fastened together and the piles provided with a tongue and groove to make them watertight. They are driven twenty-four feet between low water level and spiked to the three rows of piles by horizontal bars, forming a solid fence to prevent the washing out of the foundation of the concrete walls. A compressed air machine drives the immense nails under water through the planks and into the piles, a thickness of a foot of oak, at the rate of less than one a minute. There are 2,000 feet of concrete wall to be constructed entirely around the pier, laid in the three rows of piles. But 160 feet in four sections of forty feet each have been constructed. The walls are thirteen feet high, six feet wide at the bottom and two and a half at the top, which will be ornamented with some coping. The concrete mixing plant is the most complete of any seen in this section, the stone and cement being carried into it automatically and dumped into cars, which are run on a track to the section of wall to be constructed. The contractor expects to have the pier completed by fall if work is not stopped by high water.