Cobble Hill Tunnel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Cobble Hill Historic District
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The tunnel in 2009
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| Location | Brooklyn, New York City |
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| Built | 1844 |
| Architect | Asa Stebbins |
| Architectural style | Roman, Italianate, Queen Anne |
| NRHP reference No. | 89001388 |
| Added to NRHP | September 7, 1989 |
The Cobble Hill Tunnel (also known as the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel) is an abandoned Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) tunnel beneath Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City, running through the neighborhoods of Downtown Brooklyn and Cobble Hill. When open, it ran for about 2,517 feet (767 m) between Columbia Street and Boerum Place. It is the oldest railway tunnel beneath a city street in North America that was fully devoted to rail.
Construction and operation
Originally built as an open cut, construction began in May 1844, and opened for use on December 3, 1844, but was not completely finished until mid-1845. It was built mainly to satisfy public demand for creation of a grade-separated right of way for the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad (later Long Island Rail Road) on its way to the South Ferry at the foot of Atlantic Street (later Atlantic Avenue), where passengers could catch ferries to Manhattan. The construction of the cut also lowered the LIRR's grade through Cobble Hill. Around five years after opening the cut was roofed over, converting it into a tunnel. As originally built, the cut was 21 feet (6.4 m) wide and 2,517 feet (767 m) long. Once roofed over the interior height of the newly created tunnel was 17 feet (5.2 m).
In exchange for building the cut, the City of Brooklyn granted the B&J permission to operate its steam locomotives on Atlantic Street west of Fifth Avenue (then Parmentier's Garden/Gowanus Lane), all the way to Brooklyn's South Ferry (the present location of Brooklyn's Pier 7). Prior to the cut being built, the LIRR's western terminus was Atlantic Street at Clinton Street. Train cars were hauled by teams of horses along Atlantic Street from Clinton Street to Parmentier's Garden, where steam locomotives were attached. While the cut was being built, the railroad operated to a temporary terminal at Pacific Street and Henry Street.
The Cobble Hill Tunnel was part of the first rail link between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts. The railroad connected Lower Manhattan via the South Ferry to Greenport on the North Fork of Long Island, where a ferry connected to Stonington, Connecticut, where a rail link 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.
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, roofed over around the 1850s, and is now in use for automobile traffic.
Dormancy
In March 1916, the Bureau of Investigation suspected German terrorists were making bombs in the tunnel, and broke through the roof of the tunnel with jackhammers. They found nothing, installed an electric light, and resealed it. In the 1920s, it was rumored to be 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 unsuccessfully attempted to enter the tunnel, in order to look for the body of a hoodlum supposedly buried there. In 1941, it was rumored to have been inspected by the federal Works Progress Administration to determine its structural strength, but there is no evidence of this. A few years later, it was once again rumored to have been opened, this time by the FBI, in an unsuccessful search for spies; however, there is no evidence of this. During the late 1950s, it was sought by two rail historians, George Horn and Martin Schachne, but they did not gain access to the tunnel itself.
Rediscovery
Having fallen from public notice, the tunnel was rediscovered in 1980 by then 20-year-old Robert Diamond, who entered from a manhole he located at Atlantic Avenue and Court Street, crawled a distance of 70 feet (21 m) underground through a filled-in section of tunnel less than two feet high, and located the bulkhead wall that sealed off the main portion of the tunnel. With the assistance of a Brooklyn Union Gas Co. (now National Grid) engineering crew, he then broke through the massive concrete bulkhead wall, which is several feet thick. Diamond thereby opened access to the main portion of the tunnel, and began to popularize the tunnel as an antiquity. He led tours of its interior from 1982 until December 17, 2010, when the Department of Transportation terminated his contract, citing safety concerns. The tunnel has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1989.
The History Channel series Cities of the Underworld ran a segment ("New York's Secret Societies") on the tunnel in Fall 2008.
