text: Workers upgrading century-old water mains under Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village this week made a surprising and grisly discovery: a burial vault dating back to the 19th century with a large pile of skeletal remains. 
   
   The vault, which is about 8 feet deep, 15 feet wide and 20 feet long, contained the remains of more than a dozen people, according to officials of the city's Department of Design and Construction. A contractor excavated the site, and archaeologists and anthropologists will be working there to gather more information, officials said Wednesday. 
   
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   Among the questions are the identities of the remains. 
   
   Department of Design and Construction Commissioner Feniosky Peña-Mora said that his agency with working with the Landmarks Preservation Commission to "evaluate the extent and significance of the vault and its contents." 
   
   Excavation will continue south of the burial vault, which is at Washington Square Park East near Waverly Place, officials said. Access by vehicles and pedestrians near the area will be restricted, officials said. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video 
   
   GREENWICH VILLAGE — Archeologists believe two centuries-old burial vaults discovered beneath a New York City street this week were likely part of a Presbyterian church cemetery. 
   
   Principal investigator Alyssa Loorya says Thursday the roughly 15-by-18-foot crypts near Manhattan's Washington Square Park were found Tuesday. 
   
   She says they probably were built in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. 
   
   Workers starting a years-long water main replacement project happened upon the tombs' brick roofs just 3 ½ feet beneath the street. 
   
   Archeologists from Chrysalis were on site because the nearby Greenwich Village park was a Potter's Field for yellow fever victims in the early 1800s. 
   
   Loorya says skeletons and skulls are visible in one of the vaults. She says more than a dozen of stacked coffins are visible in the other. 
   
   Commissioner Peña-Mora issued the following statement: ||||| Workers upgrading old water mains under Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village have discovered a second burial vault with skeletal remains. Natalie Pasquarella reports. (Published Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015) 
   
   Workers upgrading old water mains under Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village have discovered two centuries-old burial vaults that likely were part of a Presbyterian church cemetery and contained more than a dozen sets of remains, according to archaeologists and officials. 
   
   One of the roughly 15-by-18-foot crypts was clearly disturbed, with the skeletons and skulls of between nine and 12 people pushed into a corner while more than a dozen stacked wooden coffins can be seen in the second one, said Chrysalis' Alyssa Loorya, the project's principal investigator. 
   
   The vaults were probably built in the late 18th century or early 19th century and belonged to one of two area Presbyterian churches, Loorya said. Members of her team will search old newspapers, death records and church archives to identify the buried — if possible. 
   
   "You never know what you can find beneath the city's streets," she said at the site in Greenwich Village. "You bury people to memorialize them and these people were forgotten." 
   
   Anthropologists and archaeologists have hung lights in the excavated area and will use digital cameras with zoom lenses to take pictures of the coffin plates in the hopes of identifying the buried. And because New York City policy is to leave burial grounds undisturbed if possible, project engineers are planning a new route for the water main. 
   
   "We knew we could be encountering remains or other items in this area," said Thomas Foley, an associate commissioner with the city's Department of Design and Construction. "We'll do some exploring to discover what other lanes we might have." 
   
   Loorya's firm was contracted to work on the three-year, $9 million project because Washington Square Park adjacent to the excavation work was a Potter's Field for yellow fever victims in the early 1800s, officials said. The tombs' brick roofs were discovered Tuesday by workers just 3 ½ feet under the street with utility cables running on top of them. 
   
   The discovery is not the first time officials have discovered historical artifacts in the course of planned upkeep projects to replace old pipes and water mains. 
   
   Eighteenth century houses and wells along with Revolutionary War buttons worn by soldiers who marched in the Battle of Brooklyn were found during construction work beginning in 2005 in lower Manhattan's South Street Seaport area, Loorya said. 
   
   "It's definitely a wonderful find," she said. 
   
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   Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York
target: – Workers were just trying to fix an old water main this week in New York's Greenwich Village and ended up with their hands full of old bones instead, Newsday reports. According to WPIX-TV, workers found the roofs of two burial vaults less than 4 feet below the street. The tombs, which are approximately 18 feet by 15 feet, were likely built in the late 18th century or early 19th century and contained the bones of at least 12 people, NBC New York reports. A pile of skulls was found in a corner in one of the vaults, while the other had a stack of a dozen wooden coffins. "You never know what you can find beneath the city's streets," one of the project heads tells NBC. "You bury people to memorialize them and these people were forgotten." Newsday reports archaeologists and anthropologists will be checking out the tombs to find out more information. But right now officials believe they're probably part of a Presbyterian church cemetery, according to NBC. Experts will be examining old documents and records in an attempt to figure out who is buried there. Meanwhile, workers are planning a new route for the water main, as it's city policy to leave burial sites be whenever possible. (Elsewhere, Israeli archaeologists just found a "dream come true" under a parking lot.)