Cobble Hill Tunnel
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| Cobble Hill Historic District | |
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| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| U.S. Historic District | |
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| Location: | New York, New York |
| Coordinates: | 40°41′24.6″N 73°59′39.7″W / 40.690167°N 73.994361°W |
| Built/Founded: | 1835 |
| Architect: | Upjohn, Richard; et al. |
| Architectural style(s): | Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne |
| Governing body: | Private |
| Added to NRHP: | September 7, 1989 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 76001225[1] |
The Cobble Hill Tunnel (popularly the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel) of the Long Island Rail Road is an abandoned railroad tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue in downtown Brooklyn, New York City. When open, it ran for about 2,750 feet (830 m) between Hicks Street and Boerum Place. It is the oldest railway tunnel beneath a city street in the world.[2][3]
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[edit] History
It opened on December 3, 1844 and was finished by January 1, 1845, as an "open cut," a trench built into the bed of Atlantic Street (today's Atlantic Avenue). It was built to reduce the grade of the railroad line—prior to the opening of the original open cut, horse teams were required to assist steam locomotives in carrying trains up the steepest part of the grade—and to create a grade-separated right of way for the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) on its way to the South Ferry at the foot of Atlantic Street, where passengers could catch ferries to Manhattan. Five years later the open trench was roofed over with "a sturdy brick arch" and filled on top to create a tunnel.
The Cobble Hill Tunnel was part of the first rail link between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts.[citation needed] The railroad connected Lower Manhattan via the South Ferry to Stonington on the North Fork of Long Island, where a ferry connected to New London, Connecticut to a rail link that continued to Boston. This avoided some difficult construction of bridges over the rivers of southern Connecticut. In 1848, the New York and New Haven Railroad Line was completed through Connecticut, providing a direct, faster rail connection from New York City to Boston. The Cobble Hill Tunnel and the Long Island Railroad remained the primary means of access to most of central Long Island from Manhattan and New York City.
As built, the tunnel was 21 feet (6.4 m) wide, 17 feet (5.2 m) high and 1,611 feet (491 m) long.
Insofar as it carried railroad trains under a city street, some have claimed it be the world's first subway tunnel, though, unlike a modern rapid transit subway, it had no stations. The ends of the tunnel were sealed in the fall of 1861. The similar Murray Hill Tunnel on the New York and Harlem Railroad was built as an open cut around 1836, and roofed over around the 1850s, and is in use for automobile traffic.
[edit] Controversy during closure
In 1861, the New York State Legislature voted to ban railroad locomotives from within the limits of the City of Brooklyn. A tax assessment was ordered on all property owners along Atlantic Street (today Atlantic Avenue), to defray the costs of the closure. It was undisclosed at the time that New York State Governor John A. King was a major shareholder in the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad (later the Long Island Railroad) and therefore had a conflict of interest and stood to benefit by the compensation payments to the railroad from the tax assessment.[citation needed]
[edit] Dormant decades
Walt Whitman wrote of the tunnel:[4]
- 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.
In March 1916, the Bureau of Investigation suspected German terrorists were making bombs in the tunnel, and broke through. They found nothing, installed an electric light, and resealed it. A water main was installed in 1916 on Court St. which crossed the tunnel at its eastern end. A concrete retaining wall was built across the tunnel and the area where the water main was installed was completely backfilled with dirt to prevent settling and potential flooding in case of a water main break. In the 1920s it was rumored used for both mushroom growing and bootleg whiskey stills even though there was no access into the main portion of the tunnel. It became an object of local folklore and legend. In 1936, the New York City Police Department broke into it with jackhammers to look for the body of a hoodlum supposedly buried there. In 1941 it was again inspected by the federal Works Progress Administration to determine its structural strength. A few years later, it was once again opened, this time by the FBI, in an unsuccessful search for spies. During the late 1950s it was inspected by two rail historians, George Horn and Martin Schachne.
It fell from public notice, but was located by an 18-year-old, Robert "Bob" Diamond in 1981, who entered from a manhole at Atlantic and Court Street. Diamond opened access to the main portion of the tunnel and popularized the tunnel as an antiquity and led tours of its interior.[4] It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1989.
The History Channel series Cities of the Underworld ran a segment on the tunnel in Fall, 2008. The TV show Treasure Hunters used it in an episode.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
- ^ Hilger, James (March 23, 2009). "Notes from the Underground: The Secret Tunnels of Brooklyn". psfk.com. http://www.psfk.com/2009/03/notes-from-the-underground-the-secret-tunnels-of-brooklyn.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-08.
- ^ Citynoise: Oldest Subway Tunnel in the World Retrieved 2009-04-08.
- ^ a b "Crossing Brooklyn LIRR Tunnel". Forgotten NY. http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SUBWAYS/tunnel/tunnel.html. Retrieved on February 9, 2009.
[edit] External links
- "Early Transit in New York City". NYSubway.org. http://www.nycsubway.org/faq/earlysubway.html. Retrieved on October 29, 2005.
- "The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel". New York City Subway Transit Scenes. http://wt.mit.edu/Subway/Tunnel/. Retrieved on October 29, 2005.
- "Brooklyn Historic Railway Association and Atlantic Avenue Tunnel". http://home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/bhra.html. Retrieved on October 29, 2005.
- "A Long-Lost Tunnel in Brooklyn". LI History.com. http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-history-hs515d,0,6961092.story. Retrieved on April 17, 2009.
- "Cobble Hill (Atlantic Avenue) Tunnel History". RapidTransit.net. http://www.rapidtransit.net/net/faq/nyc/AtlanticTunnel.html. Retrieved on October 29, 2005.
- "The Tunnel Rats of Atlantic Avenue". NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/nyregion/thecity/15tunn.html. Retrieved on April 29, 2009.
- "The New York Moon - Undertone - Music video in the tunnel". nymoon.com. http://nymoon.com/pubs/undertone/. Retrieved on May 20, 2009.
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