These Swiss-cheese-like stretches of Madison Avenue were chosen because they had generated the most complaints, Street Supt. Jim Braunshausen said. The city has been using so-called “cold mix” asphalt to patch holes, but that variety isn’t suited for larger patching jobs.

First, crews spread a special kind of oil on the exposed road to act as glue for the asphalt mixture. Using shovels, rakes and a contraption that’s sort of like a giant wheelbarrow, a smooth layer of oil-covered rocks (the asphalt) is spread across the road.

At this point, it’s still hot — up to 280 degrees — but is still more like little rocks than road.

This next part is key.

As the oil cools, it hardens. Steel drum rollers pack the asphalt down.

Wednesday’s weather, warm enough to keep the asphalt from hardening before it was laid but with a cool breeze that hardened the asphalt in only a few hours, was ideal.

As the asphalt cools to below 200 degrees, it becomes clumpy. By 100 degrees, it’s drive-able.

By the end of the day, the city was estimating that more than 200 tons of asphalt would be laid on Madison Avenue.

The long-term goal is to keep Madison Avenue going for two more years, when it’s slated for a total replacement, a much more expensive and time-consuming process than this sort of patching.

It looks like hard work, hot and noisy, but he says crews are happy to mix up what has for months been a winter-dominated routine.

“This is what we’ll be doing all summer,” Braunshausen said.