Cultural Spelunking in Brooklyn Heights

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.”

Interview w/ DELI STEVE 4 Andy Warhol's Interview

STEVE MARION. PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT SCHEUERMAN


Home studio producer, Steve Marion of Delicate Steve has crafted a genre of tropical groove-based guitar pop all from his New Jersey bedroom. The 23-year-old musician fronts the band with his guitar, playing Afro-riffs with hints of Hendrix vibes that leave no need for vocals. On his debut full-length, Wondervisions, out today on Luaka Pop, expect an anything-but-delicate sound that falls somewhere between the crossroads of soul, old-man rock, and instrumental pop.

Steve, who plays live with a group of high school friends, will begin an east coast album release tour this February. I caught up with Steve in the midst of a New Jersey whiteout, and just days before Wondervisions hit the market.

HOMETOWN: Fredon, New Jersey, and I live there now.

ON RECORDING WONDERVISIONS: It was an album I made about a year ago. I was just in a really good zone. I had done a lot of recording and playing in other bands but I never really made music myself. I was just kind of feeling inspired at the time, and decided to make an album in my room just for the hell of it. I really listened to a lot of Ponytail and Dirty Projectors at the time, and I was just getting really turned on to all these bands. So, I just kind of hung out and made a CD.

HAS INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC BEEN A BIG INFLUENCE? I would say it’s been less of an influence than vocal music. I don’t listen to many instrumental groups, or instrumental music. I like Ratatat. and I like jazz music. I also like Fela Kuti, and African instrumental. But, I never really put on instrumental music.

WHAT DO YOU PUT ON? Everything, right now I’m listening to The Beatles a lot, I’m really obsessed with those guys. Also, Alice Coltrane, and this band Love, which is getting into some classic psychedelic music.

OTHER MEMBERS OF DELICATE STEVE: Christian and I wrote two of the songs together, and he played some instruments on that. Other than that it was pretty much my songs except for the last song that a guy from Ponytail and I made together. For the past two years before Delicate Steve my friends and I were playing shows as whoever had the music. So we've all been playing together for a really long time and it’s not like these guys are just hired, or just members of Delicate Steve’s band. It’s been kind of a collective cooperative.

NEW JERSEY MUSIC REALM: A lot of my friends make really awesome music, and they aren't just trying to get it out there or be aggressive, or trying to pursue anything with it. They're just making music for fun. There used to be this place in high school, the local church called The Zoe House, and that is where we all met and started bands. That was the place to play back in high school, but there has not really been much of a local music scene other than that. It’s really just kind of the people you know, and then play a show at a random place. Most of the shows are at a bar and there is 40 year olds at the bar, it’s just a weird thing, and it’s not ideal. But sometimes I think that these people would really be getting a lot of buzz if they were playing in New York, but I don’t think they want to do that. The people I know are content, just playing one show every two months and having all their friends come out.

ON WRITING MUSIC: The whole plan was for us to go out to this house we rented in Warwick over the summer and write a bunch of music, but I think we really just had more fun hanging out. That was literally the reason we decided to get a house out there and we came out of there with 0 songs, but we had the time of our lives. But now I have another album I’m working on. I work on music everyday now. I don’t do much other than that, and I have all the equipment in my room, so I’m just kind of hanging out, working on stuff all the time.

ON THE STEREOGUM VIDEO WITH NAT BALDWIN: Nat and I became friends when we met last year, I'm a big fan of his music, and Dirty Projectors is awesome too. I met him at one of his shows and we talked about running and basketball, and that was cool because we both like to do that stuff. So we went on runs together, and we always tried to play basketball, but never got a chance to shoot for a little bit because I was never in the city at the right time. But I had this pipe dream for the video for Wondervisions as a few people playing basketball, and then I met Carlos Perez, who is directing the video, and I told him that and I told Nat the idea and everybody was into it. So that was our first little basketball game. I used to play basketball up until 8th grade, Nat has probably played his whole life he is amazing, I could talk for another 10 minutes about how good Nat is.

WHAT IS THE LAST SONG YOU LISTENED TO? 1979, Smashing Pumpkins

FANTASY SUPERGROUP: Greg from Deerhoof on drums, Nat Baldwin on bass, Alice Coltrane playing the harp, Michael Jackson singing, and the guitar playing from Captain Beefheart.

IF YOU COULD PLAY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHERE WOULD IT BE? Carnegie Hall would be awesome.

SO ARE YOU DELICATE, STEVE? I might be really sensitive. The story behind that is my best friend and I were talking a long time ago and we’re really close so we can make fun of each other, and I was just like “Oh I don’t want to go do this or that,” and he was like, “Oh, I’m Steve I’m so delicate,” just out of nowhere, and I laughed. Then when it came time to name a little recording studio I had I called it Delicate Studios after that little joke. Then when it came time to name the music I made I decided to call it Delicate Steve. So that is pretty much exactly why I call it Delicate Steve, I just thought it sounds pretty funny.

WHAT NOW? Get the salt out for the snow storm! And other than that, more music. We’re doing a tour with Akron Family soon. Super excited to go on tour with Akron Family they are one of our favorite bands and we really listen to them a lot, we used to go see them a bunch in high school. Also just keep making music with my friends and myself, staying busy.

The East Side
the butter
a dose is a dose makes a dose
the ele spoke

no one reads this anyway

Guernica

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he’s a painter, or ears if he’s a musician, or a lyre at every level of his heart if he’s a poet, or even, if he’s a boxer, just his muscles? On the contrary, he’s at the same time a political being, constantly alive to heartrending, fiery, or happy events, to which he responds in every way ... No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy.
- Pablo Picasso
I fell in love with this painting when I was living on Calle Huertas in Madrid. I would find any excuse to go to the Reina Sofia and spend time in the wide open room wholeheartedly dedicated to the Guernica. The painting is in response to the German/Italian attacks on Guernica in Basque country, Northern Spain during the Spanish Civil War. I like to view at as the international anti war metaphor; it's the pain inflicted on people of war, particularly on civilians during war. Its an embodiment of peace.. and tis beautiful!

Why do you look so sad?

music

MUSIC is the art that comes closest to the Dionysian beauty in the sense of intoxication. No one can get really drunk on a novel or a painting but who can't help but to get drunk on Beethoven's Ninth, Joni Mitchells' Blue, or Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um?
Make no distinction between pop and classical. The distinction: just old fashioned and critical; its all a liberating force from loneliness, introversion, the dust of the library.

snacks talk

If the Pharaoh's daughter hadn't snatched the basket carrying little Moses from the waves, there would have been no Old Testament, no civilization as we now know it. How many ancient myths begin with the rescue of an abandoned child! If Polybus hadn't taken in the young Oedipus, Sophocles wouldn't have written his most beautiful tragedy.

Yes, metaphors are dangerous. No, metaphors are not to be trifled with.

lunch talks

is there a means to test which decision is better? but, there is no basis for comparison. we live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is like a sketch. No, sketch is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline for something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

breakfast talks

is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? the heavier the burden the closer life comes to the earth, the more real and more truthful it becomes. the absolute absence of a burden causes us to be lighter than air, to take leave of the earth and its earthly being, and become only half real, our movements as free as they are insignificant.

what then do you choose? lightness or weight?