Did you find the Creature from the Black Lagoon lurking in there anywhere? Thanks for the story!
Reminds me of mucking out manholes in downtown Houston when I worked for the phone company about 3 decades ago. The ones out is streets usually had lots of nasty water, muck, dead and undead critters in them. Dead rodents were not uncommon, and all kinds of bugs.
To keep a railroad connection, I remember one time when an excavation was being made to tie a new building into an existing manhole, old street car tracks were uncovered along with brick paving. Now Houston is spending millions putting tracks back in I understand.
Philip