The good news is that Fulton St. is getting a major makeover. The bad news is that due to an ailing 150-year-old water main, the street will require radical plastic surgery instead of a simple trip to the Macy's makeup counter.And as with any surgery, there will be some pain before a prettier, healthier Fulton St. can emerge. A group of five city agencies appeared before neighborhood residents last Thursday to elaborate on the Fulton St. project, which will entail 90-hour work weeks, multiple street closures and nighttime water shut-offs en route to revamped streetscapes, spruced-up storefronts and new public parks. Traffic closures on the street will start sometime in July, perhaps as soon as July 9, and will last for 2 1/2 years."It's going to be a challenging time," Josh Wallack of the city's Economic Development Corporation told residents and business owners during the informational meeting at Southbridge Towers. "Hopefully, we can bring a lot of good things on line more quickly than we would have ordinarily."The original E.D.C. plan for the area was to repave streets, fix sidewalks and install historically appropriate curbs and lighting, similar to what the Downtown Alliance has put into place elsewhere in Lower Manhattan. However, when city crews did test excavations last year, they discovered that Fulton St. concealed a 150-year-old water main that would need to be replaced within the next decade.Replacing the water main, the city learned, would involve digging by hand through 5.5 feet of densely tangled utility systems -- some of which are no longer operational. The painstaking utility work will add years of labor and millions of dollars to the cost of the project.Working a standard, 40-hour week, the city estimated that the project would not finish up until 2015, a completion date it deemed "unacceptable." Therefore, representatives from the Departments of Transportation, Design and Construction, Transportation, Planning, and Parks came up with a plan to fast-track the part of the project closest to the new Fulton Transit Hub, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hopes to open in 2009.Starting sometime in the next few weeks, Fulton St. from Church St. to Gold St. will be closed to through traffic for the better part of two-and-a-half years. In 2008, most of Nassau St. from Fulton St. to Spruce St. will also be closed. As many as 10 crews will be working on the project at once from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays.In addition, crews will work through the night to replace the water main, so that necessary water shut-offs will not affect local businesses during the day. Each block will lose its overnight water service for a period of roughly two weeks, and that will likely start later in the summer or in the fall. In order to avoid digging up the same street repeatedly for new projects or repairs, as has happened on Maiden Lane, the city is insisting that private utility companies use the same trenches and contractors to complete any work they need to do in the area. The city will also install an additional water main during the project.Agency representatives at Thursday's meeting said that they understand that residents and business owners do not care whether it is the city or a private utility digging up the street -- it is the city's responsibility to make sure that the work proceeds as smoothly and efficiently as possible.With the aggressive schedule, the city hopes to finish the first, and most arduous, phase of the project by Sept. 2009. During that time, half of each block will remain paved, so that emergency vehicles and local deliveries can access the street. Pedestrians will also be able to get through. Movement will become challenging in 2009, however, when the Nassau and Fulton St. closures will be compounded by three other D.O.T. repaving projects -- a full street closure on Beekman St. and lane closures on Peck Slip, Maiden Lane and Liberty St.Residents at the meeting gasped when they heard this news, saying that locals, taxis and na