Photo by Jordan Cooper.

Workers have been digging up 96th street between Broadway and West End Avenue for much of Sunday; when witness Ernie Fritz showed up Sunday morning a worker said he suspected it was a water main problem, but we haven’t confirmed that.

There was a pretty major sinkhole in the middle of the block too. The Department of Environmental Protection shut off water to some nearby buildings.

“It appears that the buildings on the north side of West stab at 96 for two blocks will have the water turned off,” Ernie wrote.

Paul Lashin, who lives nearby, confirmed the water outage: “Columbia Condominium was out from around 11:30AM-1:00PM today, then went down again around 6:30PM. My understanding is the whole block was/is shut down. They’re still out there jackhammering now on 96th & West End,” he wrote at 9:30 p.m.

The DEP did not respond to a request for comment, and local city council members did not have an immediate response.

The street may be blocked until at least Monday. “NYPD has had to put a car at 96 and WEA with its lights on as they will be working at least all night,” wrote Robert Josman.

Photo by Ernie Fritz.