UNDERCITY.ORG
A guerrilla historian in Gotham
  

 

ATLANTIC AVENUE TUNNEL-BROOKLYN

 

From the main section of the tunnel, looking back toward the entrance. The stairs lead up more than 15 feet to the narrow opening in the wall. Beyond is a dirt tunnel that leads to a manhole vault.


Inside the Atlantic Avenue tunnel. The indentations in the dirt just visible on the bottom left are visible throughout the tunnel; they seem to be the spaces left after railroad ties were removed. The jagged hole in the ceilng on the upper right happened when the FBI broke in to check on the tunnel during WWI-- so the story goes-- after reports had circulated that Germans were manufacturing mustard gas in the space.

 





Barely visible in a long exposure, a figure floats through the tunnel.

 

Old detritus near the entrance.





The dirt tunnel, dug from the side of a manhole vault, that leads into the Atlantic Ave. Tunnel. Bob Diamond, of the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, rediscovered the existance of the Atlantic Avenue tunnel in the 1970s, and he and his sturdy volunteers dug this passageway to get in to the space.


 



EAST NEW YORK TRAIN TUNNEL - BROOKLYN





The entrance to the East New York tunnel, an abandoned frieght-train tunnel. Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island were once laced with freight-train routes, carrying goods from ships and barges docked at Brooklyn piers further into Long Island for manufacturing, sale to residences, or to be loaded onto other barges for a trip across Long Island sound to continue further north. There are only a few leftover train tunnels from this era in Brooklyn & Long Island, though, as most of the areas were flat enough that trains could travel straight on the surface. This tunnel was a "Grade Crossings Elimination"-- that is, it was dug so that one set of train tracks could pass pass underneath another set running perpindicular.

The East New York Tunnel could not have been part of the same route that was served by the Atlantic Avenue tunnel, as the Atlantic Avenue tunnel was out of use the by the 1860s and I believe this East New York Tunnel was built much later. However, I don't know very much about old train routes on Long Island, and if anyone would like to send me info on it, I would very much appreciate it.








The entrance to the East New York tunnel. One section of the tunnel is still used for freight service.





On the bottom right, the (mostly) abandoned train tracks leading from the East New York tunnels. An elevated subway track is visible on the upper left.

 






The legend at the top reads, "CITY OF NEW YORK - LONG ISLAND GRADE CROSSING ELIMINATION"