At long last, we may finally learn What's Behind the Wall!Atlantic Avenue Tunnel discoverer Bob Diamond tells McBrooklyn:
"Its been a long time coming -- National Geographic TV is going to start shooting the one hour Atlantic Avenue Tunnel documentary this weekend! It's expected to air in November, 2011.
Needless to say, I'M VERY EXCITED !!
"This weekend, they plan to start interviewing me in the tunnel. I'm told that the City (DOT) is going to let them scan Atlantic Avenue the second week of January 2011, and if they get a good 'hit,' then dig.
"Stay tuned for updates!"
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Yay, Bob!Diamond discovered the long-lost tunnel -- which runs under Atlantic Avenue between Boerum Place and Hicks Street -- in 1981, after hearing about the legend of a Civil War era rail tunnel on a radio show. After an eight-month search (during which he was repeatedly advised by City officials to give up on his lost cause) he struck gold -- uncovering, intact, the world's first subway tunnel.
Since then, thousands have ventured down into that mysterious place deep under Atlantic Avenue between Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill to hear his incredible tale of how it came to be built in 1844, then forgotten, and then found again in 1981.
Diamond has tried for years to get permission and funds to knock down a wall at the west end of the tunnel. He thinks there may be a perfectly preserved locomotive from the 1800s behind the wall -- or even the missing pages of Booth's diary that list the conspirators involved in Lincoln's death.
He is influenced in this thinking by the civil war "docudrama" the Cosgrove Report, which asserts that the missing diary pages of John Wilkes Booth were hidden in the tunnel in April, 1865 as the assassin escaped to Europe and then India.
Sound far fetched? Maybe not. Take a look at the actual history, as reported in Brooklyn Daily Eagle articles from that era here (and make sure to click on the old Eagle articles at the bottom; they will totally weird you out.)
- Welcome Back Bob: Hundreds Take Sunday's Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tour
- Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tours Saved! BP Markowitz Prevails Upon Bob Diamond
- Atlantic Tunnel's Bob Diamond Leaving Brooklyn? Say It Ain't So!
- Quite a Crowd for Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tour
- Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Is Probably Haunted
- What's Behind the Wall? Atlantic Ave. Tunnel Mystery
- Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue Tunnel: What's Behind the Wall?
- Let Them Laugh: Bob Diamond's Brooklyn Trolley Idea Gains Traction
- Mole People Back in Brooklyn?
- Lineup For Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tour
- Brooklyn Spelunking: Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tours Return
Photo copyright MK Metz
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Can't wait for this to come out! My son is playing Bob Diamond as a young boy!
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool. Congratulations to your son. When is it coming out? (We haven't been able to go on a tunnel tour lately because DOT has been giving Diamond a hard time lately.)
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