THE COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE!!!

OK, maybe it wasn't the coolest thing I have ever done...but it was pretty cool!

Yesterday, I went with a friend on a tour of the oldest subway tunnel in the world: The Atlantic Ave. Tunnel. This tunnel lay abandoned and mostly unknown for the better part of 150 years. Now, for a short amount of time it is open to the public for small viewing tours.

I knew this tour was going to be different when I called to reserve my spot and was told to bring clothes to get dirty in and my own flashlight. Then when we got there on Sunday and we saw that we had to shimmy down a man-hole in the middle of Atlantic ave., i knew for sure this was going to be as fun as i had hoped.

More about this tunnel; The tunnel was built in 1844 to connect the canal system (Erie canal) that was becoming outdated with the newly emerging railroad system. The Long Island Railroad needed to get trains to the docks in redhook but couldn't go through Brooklyn Heights to do it. Without the invention of air-brakes for the trains it would have taken about 3-4 city blocks to stop. They weren't so concerned about hitting people, since it was still illegal at the time to sue the railroad, but they were concerned about derailing the train...so a tunnel it was.

It was built as an open-cut trench that was covered over using a barrel vault. It was 21 feet wide and about 40 feet below street level. A similar trench was later dug to build the Murray Hill Tunnel in the 1850's. It has been called the first subway tunnel ever, seeing as it was built 20 years before and used as a model for the London Subway. But historians point out that it was not truly a subway tunnel because there were no subway stations. Semantics aside, this was a first of its kind.

After the tunnel was completed it was used for shipping as well as a connector from downtown Brooklyn and the Ferry Terminals to Manhattan. The tunnel itself was 2,750 and ran from Boerum Place to Columbia street.

Walt Whitman who has written about all things Brooklyn, rode the route often and wrote this in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences; however, there will, for a few years yet be many dear ones, to not a few Brooklynites, New Yorkers, and promiscuous crowds besides. For it was here you started to go down the island, in summer. For years, it was confidently counted on that this spot, and the railroad of which it was the terminus, were going to prove the permanent seat of business and wealth that belong to such enterprises. But its glory, after enduring in great splendor for a season, has now vanished—at least its Long Island Railroad glory has. The tunnel: dark as the grave, cold, damp, and silent. How beautiful look earth and heaven again, as we emerge from the gloom! It might not be unprofitable, now and then, to send us mortals—the dissatisfied ones, at least, and that's a large proportion—into some tunnel of several days' journey. We'd perhaps grumble less, afterward, at God's handiwork.


It took Irish Laborers only 7 months to complete the entire tunnel. It was opened in 1845 and the ends closed over in 1861. After that, the existence of the tunnel was largely forgotten. In 1916 the FBI drilled holes into the tunnel suspecting that German agents were secretly making mustard gas underground. They found nothing and paved over the holes, but the tunnel side holes are still visible. It was broken into in the 1920 and used for bootlegging and opened once again in the 40's to search for spies.

After the 1950's it was once again pushed away from the collective memory of the public until an 18 year old student went searching for the tunnel he had read about. He had connected the many dots spread out over books, oral history and old documents sitting in unopened boxes in Borough Hall. In 1982 Bob Diamond found his holy grail under a manhole at Atlantic and Court street. And that is good for New York.

Yesterday we saw what Bob had found. We got to climb down the manhole to a small 3 foot opening, down a very narrow walkway and through another small hole. Once through all that, the tunnel opened up and looked like...well a tunnel. It was dark and hot and dusty and cool as hell. There were a few dozen of us down there and we were escorted by Bob Diamond himself, down the length of the tunnel, each of us lighting the tunnel with our own flashlights. Bob told us the tale of the tunnel, the tale of his rediscovery and his hope for the future of the tunnel and the Brooklyn waterfront.

It was obvious that bob loves Brooklyn. The fate of the tunnel is still in the hand of the city bureaucracy, but would probably do better in the hands of Mr. Diamond and his crew.

to take the tour yourself check out this page: http://www.newyorkology.com/archives/2007/09/next_atlantic_a_1.php

For some pictures of the tunnel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/82369865@N00/