Manhattan – Beginning Tuesday night, the city is shutting down a major chunk of the FDR Drive for 24 hours to shore up the ground and pilings that hold up the river-hugging highway.

All three northbound lanes of the major East River thoroughfare, between E. Houston to E. 23rd Sts., will be closed for 24 hours beginning at 9 tonight.

Officials insist the roadway isn’t about to slough off into the river – if it were, they said, it would already be closed.

The highway sits atop a mix of solid ground, loose fill, a Con Edison intake pipe from a nearby power plant and pilings in the water, which were compromised when a hole recently appeared in the roadway’s edge along the river, sources told The NY Daily News.

Still, they said they urgently needed to patch the holes and install temporary bridging underneath the pavement so they could start fixing the problem – and prevent more complications later on.

The closure is expected to cause a behemoth of a bottleneck for morning and evening rush hours tonight and tomorrow as drivers are detoured around the roadblock to First Ave.

The around-the-clock repair work will also cause a flood of traffic on the West Side Highway.

City transportation officials warn the work won’t be just a 24-hour patchup. While two of the lanes are expected to be reopened by 9 p.m. tomorrow, the right-hand northbound lane will stay closed until further notice.

(Source: NY Daily News)