July 30, 2007
1844 Atlantic Avenue railway tunnel reopens for tours
There is no other tour in New York City that starts off through an open manhole cover in the middle of the intersection at Brooklyn's busy Court Street and Atlantic Avenue.
 That's the only way to get into the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel, a half-mile, long-forgotten train tunnel built in 1844. Bob Diamond, the man who rediscovered the tunnel in 1980 (after he was repeatedly told by city and transit officials that it didn't exist.)
The legends are almost too good to check: from bootlegging and pirates to a story that John Wilkes Booth hid his diary down there with the name of the man who hired him to assassinate President Lincoln and a newspaper account of Irish railroad laborers so infuriated over their new English foreman's insistence they work Sundays without extra pay that they killed him and sealed him in the tunnel walls.
And best of all: an entire locomotive engine may still be down there, just beyond a concrete wall (pictured above,) at the intersection of Atlantic and Hicks, (map,) where the tunnel now ends, (although it originally extended a couple blocks further down to the East River.)
However, holes can still be seen near the top of the tunnel where city crews smashed through during WWI to investigate reports of German saboteurs hiding under Atlantic Avenue.
City records at that time just said "unknown tunnel in good condition," according to Diamond, who led the first of the tunnel tours this past Sunday morning for the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association.
The tours, which haven't been offered for the past several years, should take place more frequently now that they have city permission again. The next tours could happen as soon as August.
On Sunday, one by one, visitors placed their hands on Atlantic Avenue and gingerly stuck a foot down into the hole, testing the stability of the metal ladder before descending down what turns out to be only a few rungs. At first, the sides are dirt, with one level of sandbags on the sides. The ceiling, only about six feet high in the first ante room, is red brick with sticky black goo. The first level of the tunnel only stretches 30 feet or so and then you duck through a hole in the cement wall that leads to the main part of the tunnel.
When Diamond found this first ante-room, with the help of a skeptical Keyspan crew, the space had only 18 inches of clearance between the dirt and the ceiling. Once he crawled through the space, and got through the far end, he found the abandoned railway line. "It was just like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' a blast of cold air came though and there was the tunnel," he said.
From there, you can now climb down the plank-steps to the bottom of the tunnel.
In the tunnel, which Diamond refers to as the world's first subway tunnel, the shaft is 21 feet wide and 17 feet high, located four stories below Atlantic Avenue by the time you get to Clinton Street. It's six feet thick at the base, reduced to four feet-thickness of brick at the sides and only two feet at the ceiling, he said.
The tunnel air was far cooler than above ground. There was a bit of mud in spots and some of the bricks were moist, (even before the big rains started on Sunday.) The train tracks have been removed, but there are other remnants: a rusted piece of a wheel, loose brick, and markings on the wall indicating electricity was installed March 11, 1916.
"The idea is to rescue this tunnel and reconnect it to the waterfront," said Diamond, who is also responsible for the currently-abandoned plan to bring trolley service back to red Hook, Brooklyn. The historic cars can still be seen on the Brooklyn waterfront. Three are sitting at the edge of the Fairway Cafe and the fourth is inside the Beard warehouse (and can be seen from the windows in the hallway on the second floor.
Diamond, (pictured above,) said he'd like to see the Atlantic Avenue tunnel reopened and used for trolley service that would loop along the East River waterfront at Furman Street and up to Borough Hall. Another branch could go to Red Hook. And separately, he said he'd like to return trolley service to Coney Island.
The Sunday Atlantic Avenue tours were priced at $15. If you go, bring a flashlight, sturdy shoes and clothes that can get dirty.
Related coverage at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Channel 12 (with video,) McBrooklyn and Forgotten NY.
Earlier: Old City Hall to host transit tours, historic cars return
MTA says it's OK to stay on 6 thru Old City Hall station
Waldorf-Astoria's private rail platform forever closed
Exploring New York from top to extreme underground
What's under New York? Four questions for Julia Solis
Unearthing the legend of the 'secret subway'
July 30, 2007 06:48 AM in Architecture, Cheap Stuff, History, Kids, Out of Manhattan, Sightsology, Tours, Transportology
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