BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — On Sunday afternoon, in the middle of Atlantic Avenue at Court Street, dozens of people of all ages, shapes and sizes walked to the middle of the busy intersection and — to the amazement of passing drivers and shoppers heading to Sahadi’s — disappeared down an open manhole.

While the sun beat down on the pedestrians and autos above, the climbers — bearing flashlights and cameras — eased themselves along a narrow metal ladder, through a rocky tunnel and down a steep flight of wooden stairs to a cool, silent world hidden far beneath Brooklyn.

There they stared upon a sight most Brooklynites will never see — a long tunnel with a high arched ceiling, stretched out ahead of them through the rock, black as pitch where the several fluorescent lights failed.

This was the start of Bob Diamond’s Atlantic Avenue Tunnel tour, returned after a break of many years. Picking their way carefully in the dark, flashlights training on the rough stone walls, an overturned wheelbarrow, the brick ceiling and rocky rubble, the explorers were told the story of the tunnel by its discoverer and official historian, Bob Diamond.

“Awesome,� the hikers said, taking pictures of the rocks, the walls and the abrupt end of the tunnel at its west end.

The tunnel, which lies below Atlantic Avenue between Hicks Street and Boerum Place, was built in 1844 as part of the Long Island Railroad’s main branch from Brooklyn to Long Island. Walt Whitman had described the tunnel as “dark as the grave, cold, damp and silent.�

After the Civil War, when real estate interests convinced the city government not to let steam railroads traverse Downtown Brooklyn, the tunnel was sealed and was supposed to have been filled in. As the decades passed, the memory of it faded and records disappeared. Eventually, even city engineers assumed that the story was mere urban legend.

Diamond discovered the tunnel as a young man of 19, after hearing about the legend on a radio show. He began an eight-month — some said Quixotic — quest, visiting libraries, scouring old newspapers. Finally he found an article in a Brooklyn Eagle from the turn of the century which said that a set of plans were stored in the borough president’s office.

He visited the office, and was humored by an employee who let him dig through an old box filled with relics — “like old deeds signed by Indians,� says Diamond. To everyone’s amazement except his own, he found the complete plans for the world’s first subway tunnel.

The NYC Department of Environmental Protection and Brooklyn Union Gas helped Diamond open the tunnel. Volunteers helped him clear it out, and for several years he offered tours. But after an ill-fated attempt to revive trolley service along the Brooklyn waterfront failed and other plans received serious setbacks, Diamond decided “to heck with it,� he said.

Fast-forward a few years.

Diamond says he recently received a call from the Department of Transportation asking if he would be interested in starting the tours again. He thought about it, then agreed. “You never know,� he said. “Maybe with a new group in office, things have changed.�

The next tour will take place Sunday, July 29. Depending on interest, more tours will take place in the future.

For reservations, call (718) 941-3160. For more information, visit http://www.brooklynrail.net/

© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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