Destroyed Or Not Destroyed

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

Yesterday I searched for a mark (KU1423) that was supposed to be set in a step at a door to a hospital on 88th Street and East End Avenue in New York City. Well, the building was gone and there was a hole in the ground and construction was underway for a new building. There was even a big sign "Coming soon on this corner, etc, blah, blah". Trying to be scrupulous, I paced off 96 feet northwest of the northwest curb of East End and peeked through the fence. Nothing. In fact the whole property up to the sidwalk was now a gaping hole. (see photo in my log entry)

 

I logged it as "destroyed" on our GC site. I know the (NGS) guidelines say if you don't have the broken mark in your hand or a picture of it, log it "not found" instead of "destroyed". So I obediently logged it as "not found" on the NGS site. So for me I used a more "permissive" use of "destroyed" on GC than on NGS.

 

The NGS policy may be reasonable in many cases, but with the building or area absolutely gone, I see no reason not to admit to the fact that this is destroyed. The end result is that a number of entries remain in the NGS database, probably for years, that are for non-existant marks.

 

(Of course I may have been at 88th and West End Ave so I leave it to others to double check the site.)

 

There are other cases where an obviously destroyed mark can not be documented using the "dead bird in hand" guideline. I have seen a number of entries with notes like "location is now a parking lot", etc.

 

What do others do?

 

Anyone from NOAA care to elaborate on how to interpret their guidelines in cases like this?

 

Thanks

[caseyb]

Two options.

 

1: When you submit your not found report, include a note in the descriptive text. If you read the FAQ in this forum there is a note about this...

 

"NOT FOUND -- I can't find it. Describe how hard you looked or confused you were, e.g., "not found after 10 minute search; unable to recover because all witnesses are destroyed" or "not found; existence doubtful, entire area is now a new shopping mall."

 

Your note will be included in the datasheet.

 

2: Take a bunch of pictures of the area and write to Deb Brown. If you can convince her that the mark is destroyed, she will list it as such.

 

-Casey-

[+Spoo]

I am not a surveyor (nor do I play one on TV). I also know the difficulty I have had in reading some of the descriptions for BM locations.

 

As such, I always give the benefit of doubt to the BM. I assume that I may be doing something wrong when I cannot find the mark.

 

I follow the guidelines that caseyb has outlined and will include my search attempts, time spent and why I do or do not believe in the marks' existence. I will leave it to a certified, genuine, surveyor to decide what is and isn't destroyed.

[Z15]

7/17/1996 by NGS (MARK NOT FOUND)

RECOVERY NOTE BY NATIONAL GEODETIC SURVEY 1996 (GAS)

THE BUILDING HAS BEEN RAZED. ASSUMED DESTROYED.

Edited September 29, 2005 by Z15

[+seventhings]

Same as Spoo.

 

I've got a lot of "not founds" that have comments like "the described location now lies within the paved right-turn lane of the recently widened highway".

 

7

[+Airmapper]

I logged my first "didn't Find" yesterday when I couldn't find the building the disk was mounted to. I didn't mark it "destroyed" because I did not actually go the the given coords and find any witnesses.

 

BTW, I only log on GC.com, I'm not familiar enough with what I'm doing to report anything to NGC or NOAA.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

My opinion is that it is a good policy for us non-surveyors to resist attempting to get the NGS to log a PID as destroyed unless it's a clear case of an intersection station (tower, church steeple, etc.) entirely gone from the coordinates' position.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Well, I've managed to get one benchmark listed as destroyed. KU1430. That took another person logging it as destroyed, plus supporting evidence: Ruppert and Yorkville Towers.

On the other hand, I did find KU1423 last year. Perhaps they would accept collaborative evidence?

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

My opinion is that it is a good policy for us non-surveyors to resist attempting to get the NGS to log a PID as destroyed unless it's a clear case of an intersection station (tower, church steeple, etc.) entirely gone from the coordinates' position.

I agree, and obviously you can't get NGS to mark something destroyed just on our say-so, you have to get Deb Brown to concur.

 

In this case Harry took a picture of KU1423 last year (just the BM), and I took a picture of a hole in the ground, so that is probably not enough correlation. It's not a big deal for me and in fact I had already done both of Casey's suggestions before he wrote his note.

 

In the case of GC logs however, I will log it destroyed if I can prove to myself it is (such as with KU1423). If I'm wrong, I'm sure there will be lots of feedback correcting me. I will be very cautious. KU1423 has very exact and explicit directions which at least 3 others had used and found the mark. Furthermore, the mark was attached to a well known building (Beth Israel Hospital North, formerly Doctors Hospital) which has manifestly and without a shadow of a doubt been destroyed.

 

So we move on, doing the best we can.

Edited September 29, 2005 by Papa-Bear-NYC

[+seventhings]

In the case of GC logs however, I will log it destroyed if I can prove to myself it is (such as with KU1423). If I'm wrong, I'm sure there will be lots of feedback correcting me. I will be very cautious. KU1423 has very exact and explicit directions which at least 3 others had used and found the mark. Furthermore, the mark was attached to a well known building (Beth Israel Hospital North, formerly Doctors Hospital) which has manifestly and without a shadow of a doubt been destroyed.

 

My two cents: disks on razed buildings, replaced bridges, etc = "not found" (both GC and NGS) with appropriate amplifying comments. To my way of thinking, a station that is a disk is "destroyed" (for either GC or NGS) only if Deb brown says it's destroyed.

 

Intersection stations are different (easy to log "destroyed" on GC / "not found" on NGS).

 

That's just how I do it. I don't think there is a right or wrong for GC.

 

Will

Edited September 29, 2005 by seventhings

[Bill93]

The NGS does not appear to be concerned about cluttering the data base with "Not Found" marks that are obviously by reasonable standards in fact gone. So I'm happy to play along with that.

 

In fact, I've come to consider it advantageous to log a NF sometimes even when I think I could get a "destroyed" log, because the accompanying note can record for posterity the evidence you have found. An NGS "destroyed" just says that, with no record of what convinced anybody.

[+PFF]

I'll echo Bill's comments. Very well put! I like the idea of leaving a "history" trail.

 

Here's one of my recent submissions to NGS:

 

EZ2465    338 RALEIGH    NOT FOUND

VISITED SITE. THE MASONIC LODGE BUILDING HAS BEEN TORN DOWN, AS PREDICTED AT THE TIME OF THE 1976 RECOVERY. BARNES STORE AND THE OLD FIRE DEPARTMENT BUILDING WERE EASILY IDENTIFIED. ADDITIONALLY, THE SITE WAS CONFIRMED BY A LOCAL RESIDENT.

 

SINCE THE DESCRIBED SETTING FOR 338 RALEIGH NO LONGER EXISTS, THE STATION IS PRESUMED TO BE DESTROYED.

 

-Paul-

[Z15]

The NGS does not appear to be concerned about cluttering the data base with "Not Found" marks that are obviously by reasonable standards in fact gone. So I'm happy to play along with that.

 

Even if it were logged destroyed it will never be removed from the database. It just won't come up on a serach unless you know the PID and check the box, "inlcude destoyed marks".

 

To those not in the surveying profession it would seem a mark that is destroyed is gone forever. That is not the case, once surveyed it will always remain in some record somewhere. There have be marks reported destroyed that were later discovered as reported in error.

 

Each mark has 2 permanent records, the actual mark in the field and the record data from the Survey that established the mark. The records will always remain thru history. For example, a person dies, Do they destroy all records of that person? No, same with survey records. Never will they be removed and discarded.

Edited September 29, 2005 by Z15

[Difficult Run]

Z15,

 

I agree with your post. Nice to hear the perspective from a surveyor's point of view.

 

I'm certain there are field notes to each and every one of these NGS benchmarks. Question is, where are they kept?? NGS or the monumenting agency? If so, can folks like myself access them?

 

- Mitch -

[evenfall]

What we need to keep in mind is that NGS applies the logic of David Hume's Empiricism to their survey markers. If you cannot bring them a pound of destroyed survey marker and show them, then it ain't destroyed.

 

Hume was not sure coal would burn unless you threw the chunk in the Fire, Next Chunk? well that was also an unknown until in the fire and burning... and so on...

 

When you understand the reasoning, it makes it hard to arbitrarily destroy anything. That could be bad for a database... it would leave it wide open to abuses that are not wanted.

 

The bottom line? If you didn't find it when you didn't find it, then you didn't find it. That two cents worth and what you did to try, is worth a lot.

 

Rob