Ask Bob Diamond what the greatest moment of his life is, and he will respond, “Here I am in the dark, in this crevice seven feet under Atlantic Avenue, and time is running out.” Thanks to this moment, and many other moments in which Diamond persevered against large corporations, and experts saying “impossible,” the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel proved to not be a pre-civil war myth, but the world’s oldest existing railway.
Bob Diamond discovered the tunnel in 1981 after years of studying the myth of wealthy Cornelius Vanderbilt’s 19th century tunnel. Now, 29 years later Diamond hosts tours on sporadic Sunday afternoons, but you’ve got to work to experience the history. The only way to access the tunnel is by using a manhole at the corner of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue, one of the busiest intersections on the border of Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn.
So, how does one safely get to this time tunnel? It’s easy, after giving one of “Bob’s elves” 15 dollars, about 100 of us make our way to a line in the middle of the bustling intersection. As cars and trucks wiz by our heads one by one we climb down a ladder, into a dirt trench, crawl under a large pipe, to find another hole with a large staircase feeding into a dome shaped brick tunnel.
“Wow, it really does exist!” exclaimed Alex Mechanik, whose girlfriend took him on the tunnel tour for his birthday. “This is immediately cooler than I thought it was going to be.”
As kids ran around dressed in their posh mining gear, flashlight headbands and new lumberjack boots, we were all hushed by the voice of Bob, a round-shaped jolly man from Kensington, and the type of guy you would call “Uncle Bob” even if he’s not your Uncle at all.
“The reason they wanted this train out of the way of everyone is because trains didn’t have brakes back in those days,” said Diamond, as his voice radiated the acoustics of the half a mile long tunnel. “Trains would run over horses, break up wagons, and they’d run over a few people. See, the railroad didn’t really care about breaking things or hurting people cause you couldn’t really sue a railroad back then.”
Amongst stories of trains without brakes, Diamond told stories of bootleggers in the tunnel, German spies, lady pirates, and the mafia, “Well, it must be true because I read all this in the newspaper,” Diamond said.
Diamond became his own expert on the subject after his hard work looking for the tunnel was discouraged by just about everybody, except his mom.
Before finding the tunnel, Diamond went to three experts. The first warned the tunnel is filled with water, and that he will drown. The second warned of poisonous gas, and that he will inhale it, and die immediately. The third warned of 7 seven-foot rats that will eat him alive.
Thanks to Diamond’s 19-year-old sense to not give a crap what the experts think, he kept on searching, Diamond said.
When Diamond finally found where the entrance via a manhole was, thanks to an old newspaper article at the Brooklyn Library, he went to a gas company to help him get into the tunnel. The company all-too-easily agreed to help, and they set the time for the next day to go spelunking into the bowels of Brooklyn.
Diamond’s mom awoke him in the middle of the night, in the midst of his dreams of lost treasures and buried arks, Diamond said. She said something is wrong with the gas company; nothing is that easy. She told Bob he better get up and go check or he will be left with nothing. Thanks to Bob’s mom he was able to catch the gas company in the midst of their scheme.
“We decided that you’re just a 19 year old kid, and since you told us where the manhole is, who needs you? We’ll just go find it ourselves,” said Diamond as he reenacted his conversation with the gas company on the morning that he was supposed to find his buried treasure.
The gas company was just about to give up, stating that there was nothing down there, but Diamond insisted on taking a look for himself. “They tie a steal cable around me and said whatever you’re doing do it quick, in 5 minutes they’re going to pull me up with this cable, they give me an air tank, a gas mask, a walkie talkie, and a 7 foot crowbar.”
And thus, was discovered the world’s oldest railroad.
“I went to use the walkie talkie to tell the gas company I had found it, but I couldn’t talk all I could think about was all these experts telling me I couldn’t find it, so I just laughed,” said Diamond about his moment of glory.
Diamond’s discovery has caught the attention of many Brooklynites, and a few lucky out of towners. His next big project is to unveil what he believes to be a locomotive hidden behind the stone wall on the west end of the tunnel.
National Geographic will be making a 1-hour special on the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in hope of raising awareness and money for Diamond’s next buried treasure: the hidden locomotive.
“This whole experience has made me think, I bet there is so much more out there, so many undiscovered places, and hidden nooks that everybody is too apathetic to care about,” said Charlotte Gutman, a seemingly changed woman from her Atlantic Avenue Tunnel experience. “I’m inspired to go an adventure.”
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