Grates and Babies

I am just wondering what the group of men were doing on the corner of Albany and Ainslie. I often people watch, where normally uneventful things happen. Children and moms buy ice cream from the bicycle ice cream man, tricked out vans park on the corner and blare Ranchero music to impress all the sweet honeys walking by, and groups of young people walk and shout (not talk) about who gave head to whom.

Today was a unique scene. A group of four men had a grate pulled off the parkway, a grate I am assuming covers the incredibly sanitary water system we all love smelling while taking a romantic stroll with our boos, and were standing around this open hole. A group of middle aged women stood across the street and watched as these men stared down into the hole (oh, the rugged manliness of 'working 'men), until the men seemed satisfied they had seen everything in the bottom of this unexplained hole, pulled the cover back on, and dispersed.
What could they have been doing? My only thought was there was a baby down there, but they seemed a little too relaxed for that. And if there is a baby, I'm just hoping that it died on the fall down.

-Jay