surprisingly it's not exactly difficult to lose track of a tunnel and believe me new york city has
forgotten about several of their own be it from the city's expansion to the events of world war
ii or just plain old falling out of use the fact is there are cavernous mazes of man-made spaces
under the city that have literally been lost and forgotten today i will present you a few stories
of the forgotten tunnels of new york city i'm your host ryan socash and you're watching it's history
most of us know the surface level history of new york such as the fact that it was founded as a
dutch trading post under the name new amsterdam in 1626 or became a city in 1653 these are the types
of facts that are rather easy to follow as they recall events that affected people in obvious ways
however within the near four centuries of the city's history there are countless underground
elements that enable life to unfold be it out of sight and with out of sight being out of mind
documentation becomes obscure and easy to forget elements of underground urban infrastructure
here fall into this category especially when it comes to the train tunnels of the 19th century
in 1844 before brooklyn was a part of new york city and was simply the city of brooklyn there was
a strong desire for the population to gain fast and reliable methods of traveling to their pier
to better catch a ferry to manhattan however the trains serving the city at that time the
long island railroad did not have brakes powerful enough to safely operate at road level as a result
the atlantic avenue tunnel also known as the kabul hill tunnel was constructed in merely seven months
first by cutting open the earth and digging out what was essentially a large valley and
then covering it with a tunnel roof this amazing tunnel was a half mile long and had space for
two railway tracks eliminating risk to pedestrian traffic and helping travelers avoid delays making
the tunnel a very swift method of travel and a novel concept by the time it was finished in 1845
in many circles this tunnel was considered to be the world's first subway performing very well and
serving until 1861 when the city of brooklyn banned steam locomotives within city limits
entirely long story short brooklyn just sealed it off and it was mostly forgotten about however
not long after rumors and conspiracies would kick the tunnel back into public eye in 1916
the federal bureau of investigation then known as the bureau of investigation had a hunch that
the tunnel was being used as a base for german terrorism while nothing came of this theory the
suspicions returned again in the 1940s when the fbi supposedly believed that the tunnel was being
used to house spies for the third reich though there also does not appear to be any supporting
evidence of this claim so again by 1950 everyone had basically forgotten about the tunnel however
a minor mythical status lingered after all the world's first subway tunnel later was suspected
by the us government to be the layer of spies legends were simply inevitable people became so
mystified by the topic that a pair of historians actually attempted to locate the forgotten tunnel
but to no avail it would seem almost as if the cobble hill tunnel did not physically exist so
let's fast forward to 1980 when it was discovered in 1980 when robert diamond set out on a journey
to the cobble hill tunnel his search consisted of crawling around into sealed portions of
underground brooklyn when one day he happened upon a concrete wall with protruding bricks and stones
so with the help of a crowbar and some elbow grease he was able to break open and unseal
the atlantic avenue tunnel he was so excited by his discovery that he began conducting taurus to
other curious minds though this was short-lived the new york city fire department shut down his
tour service after they heard he was prying open a manhole cover in broad daylight in the
middle of the street you see this was necessary so that he could allow guests to access the tunnels
via a ramshackle ladder citing some very obvious safety concerns all the same bob diamond is still
very well remembered for being the man that rediscovered the world's first subway tunnel
moving on we have the story of new york's lost mail tunnel let's start the journey at the james
a farley building which is new york city's primary post office and once operated 24
7. until the recession forced it to begin closing at 10 pm back in 2009 built in 1914 in the bose
art style just like grand central terminal and michigan central station which we've talked
about in previous videos it has been a very busy building throughout its history and over the years
mystery has widely surrounded this building you see locals have observed much of it to be empty an
observation that would raise important questions for example if this postal office is so busy and
so important yet mostly empty where does all the mail actually get processed the answer comes from
a set of buildings just down the block on 9th avenue where you will find the morgan processing
and distribution center the usps's largest sorting facility it is a massive complex of buildings
taking up two entire city blocks processing all the mail going in and out of the postal office
previously the morgan center and the farley post office were connected by a freight railway which
crossed a viaduct but when it fell out of use another route of travel was needed and considering
how close these two facilities are together the natural response would probably be simple like
take the mail down the road but with the hustle and bustle of city life and roads clogged with
traffic that's much easier said than done so a tunnel was dug between the two facilities
generally following 9th avenue and that is where the mail flowed this mail tunnel served its
purpose well until at which point the hauling of mail ceased as the new york state government began
talks to purchase the farley building and transform it into a train hall naturally after
the tunnel's closure they fell into abandonment and despair the stairs and elevators leading
below ground were sealed shut and rats began to infest the vacant space finally the farley
building also contains an entrance to tracks from penn station which is yet again another building
that we've talked about on previous episodes though it was never used for passenger service
this forgotten tunnel was swept and secured by the secret service with the intention of it being used
during the pope's 2015 visit but that's about all we know this tunnel has met a very similar
fate to the farley morgan mail tunnel as all of its entrances have been sealed the city even went
as far as welding shut manholes to make sure that absolutely nobody could get inside now let's head
back over to brooklyn where we will discover the tunnels that once supported a swimming pool that
accommodated thousands and thousands of people at a time from 1903 to 1905 the city of new york
acquired four plots of land in brooklyn surrounded by all sorts of industrial works chemical plants
iron works and more these plots of land would be developed into a park first known as greenpoint
park being renamed to mccarran park in 1909 after patrick henry mccarron a popular politician who
passed away in that same year initially being a collection of playgrounds and athletic facilities
the park gradually expanded adding more facilities and gardens as the 20th century rolled forward
by 1936 as part of president roosevelt's new deal the wpa or works progress administration
built 11 state-of-the-art pools in new york city one of which was the mccarran park pool the pool
was quite nice even by today's standard this pool offered a gigantic capacity of 6 800 swimmers with
filtration and heating systems all controlled by an enormous boiler room this boiler room was
connected to an even more enormous tunnel system all the way around the perimeter to keep systems
in check this pool was so modern that it even had underwater lighting which was unheard of for the
time well the pool was a hit and a major social hub for the community by 1984 it had fallen into
a poor state and hence was closed but the tunnel system remained circling directly beneath the pool
deck and with an entrance to both the boiler and filtration room the tunnel is almost as impressive
as the pool itself lying abandoned for 20 years until the pool came to be used as a concert and
entertainment venue amazingly by 2012 the pool had been refurbished and was reopened this time with a
capacity of 1 500 swimmers it isn't as large as it once was the diving pool has been filled in
and converted into a volleyball court and some of the 100 year old tunnel system is still utilized
but much of it sits untouched and abandoned right under the park now let's discuss a tunnel for the
academic elitist with the story leading up to its existence and ultimate abandonment being
simply unbelievable bull hall is an oddity among the buildings of columbia university
and many feel it does not fit in with the rest of the buildings at the college indeed it has a very
unusual past in 1769 a student of the columbia university by the name of dr samuel bard gave a
speech that inspired the creation of a hospital thanks to fundraising efforts by henry moore the
province of new york's royal governor the hospital was fully established in 1771. this hospital had
a wing for mental illness which was thought to be sufficient in capacity but by the turn of
the century the amount of cases had risen to the point that expansion was required thus the lunatic
asylum was constructed in 1808 with the absence of hospital in the name being no mistake it was
designed as an 80 bed refuge from the rest of the complex while asylum would have been considered
to be even worse than the name hospital by today's standards the new york lunatic asylum was actually
one of the first mental institutions to rein in the restraining equipment commonly associated
with mental health treatment of the time such as straight jackets in 1820 a lack of space forced
yet another expansion this time to a 26 acre farm next to bloomingdale road which is now known as
broadway so in a year the bloomingdale asylum opened with a separate building for women
open six years later these asylums continued the practices of their predecessors focusing on what
they called quote unquote moral treatment rather than medical treatment in some cases granting
greater freedom to their patients at a time when the standard of mental health treatment was often
locking the patient up and throwing away the key though that's not to say they were a moral bastion
by any means from today's standard for example their primary form of restraint was a long-sleeve
shirt with leather hand shackles formally they prohibited the use of straight jackets but they
did make frequent use of the quote-unquote tranquilizer chair in which an overactive
patient would be seated in a heavy wooden chair strapped down at the chest abdomen knees
ankles and wrists then a wooden box would be placed over their head this was all done to
allow for easier bloodletting which was a common treatment at the time and although it's probably
rather obvious it's been proven to be medically pointless today by 1839 financial difficulties
forced the asylum to focus on profit and the treatment quality suffered greatly in 1872
julius chambers wrote a number of pieces for the new york times revealing that the asylum had lost
their commitment to moral treatment he documented closed cells uncomfortable beds and chairs foul
food filthy baths all run by rude and vulgar attendants while the controversies did put a dent
in the activities of the institution the financial issues were inevitably what put the asylum under
the nearby neighborhood began putting pressure on the undesirable asylum in their backyard
and cost of living began to rise so the asylum had to shut its doors and sell off its land
this is when colombia took possession of the land between 116th and 120th street looking to expand
the campus to new areas the university had most of the buildings torn down so next to none of
bloomingdale asylum was left and as far as most people are concerned the only remnant left is
buell hall but what they fail to realize is that there were also plenty of tunnels from the asylum
left behind almost no one realizes it but beneath the asylum was a system of tunnels connecting
all the buildings in the complex together after the university purchased the grounds these tunnels
remained the tunnels were used during world war ii for wartime research and were said to have
assisted in the united states manhattan project aiding in the creation of the most powerful weapon
humanity has ever seen there was also a short period before 1957 that the tunnels were used
as a pedestrian walkway but after the college walk was constructed they fell out of use
again in that regard as well one more major point in history that these tunnels were used
was around the time of the vietnam war you see the military draft began to greatly increase in scale
putting in 2.2 million people between 1965 and 1970 and in that time students became enraged as
some claimed that the university had sent out the class rankings to draft boards with the intention
of removing underperforming students from the campus and sending them overseas while this
practice concluded in 1967 the next year would see the assassination of dr martin luther king jr
and cities across america went mad this anger combined with other strong social tensions on
campus detonated into a series of protests in late march of 1968 these protests climaxed with the
occupation of many of the university's buildings which happened multiple times throughout the year
of 1968 throughout these protests students would use the tunnels to communicate with
other buildings making sure that no sudden development was unknown and that no group
was left out of the loop ironically the tunnels would also play a key role in the administration
reclaiming their buildings the tunnels beneath columbia university remain there to this day
and while more and more passages are being blocked as time goes on people continue to explore while
the tunnel's origins remain a mystery some explorers have found markings on i-beams in
the tunnel dating back as far as july of 1885. sometimes history remains half-written i suppose
last up is probably the most interesting forgotten tunnel as it has seen the likes of world leaders
track number 61. this platform was once part of grand central terminal and was not constructed for
pedestrian use within the new york city subway rather it was a powerhouse and a place to put
unused trains in the 1910s back then it was known as new york central railroad now known as metro
north its powerhouse was connected to grand central terminal and other buildings in the
area but which were knocked down when the waldorf hotel purchased the air rights above the tracks
and by technicality gained ownership of those tracks the hotel adapted track number 61 to
be used as a private railway sighting by which guests with their own rail cars could immediately
be connected to the hotel the first major name to use this service was general john j
pershing in 1938 who entered the hotel via the service and while some believe that there is
still a rail car remaining on track number 61 that belonged to president franklin d roosevelt who
appears to like popping up in today's stories the only real connection that could be found between
fdr and track number 61 was a secret service schedule during the campaign season of 1944
where on october the 21st he entered and exited the building
using this railway sighting track 61 would end up concealing the comings and goings of several
presidents throughout history and was prepared for use as recently as 2003 when it was laid
out as an escape route for president george w bush during a un general assembly meeting in the hotel
tunnels are fascinating as they are not widely appreciated when in use and mostly forgotten the
moment they go out of use and yet as we have learned today the elements that have graced
these abandoned places range from trains to world leaders asylums the world's brightest students
and plumbing equipment and as absurd of a range as that list might be every item has one commonality
the need for concealment perhaps this is why on a deeper level we are enchanted by tunnels and
the mysterious places of america that have been forgotten and with that this is ryan signing off