Fall/Winter 2010

It is, no doubt, the most unexpected start to a New York City adventure. The directions point you to a corner in Brooklyn. Upon arrival, one thing stands out amid the hustle and bustle of the area: a ladder sticking out of a manhole in the middle of Atlantic Avenue, with traffic — usually at a gridlocked standstill — on either side of it.

Yes, that’s your destination. It’s the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tour, the chance to explore one of NYC’s forgotten places. Running underneath what is now Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, the tunnel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Tour guides — and, usually, some off-duty members of the NYPD — will safely escort you to the ladder.

Bob Diamond, president of the Brooklyn Historic Railways Association, heard rumors of the tunnel when he was a college student in the early 1970s. Though pretty much everybody he bumped into told him it didn’t exist, he kept on searching and, in 1979, finally uncovered it.

Luckily for all of us, his love for the tunnel has stayed strong: he’s a dazzler of a storyteller and, during the two hours or so that you’ll spend underground, Diamond will walk your family through the tunnel’s history and the tale of his own determined search to find it. With all the talk of pirates and gangsters, your kids won’t even realize they’re also getting an incredible history lesson about both the city and America’s industrial age.

But take note: this is no spur-of-the-moment adventure. It always sells out and reservations are required. 

- State - New York

- Type - Family Vacations

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