Yesterday I went on an awesome tour of the Atlantic Avenue tunnel. Built in 1844, it’s the oldest subway tunnel in the world, it was lost from the public and a bit of an urban legend until it was rediscovered in 1979. Now, you can take tours.

I showed up at the corner of Court St. and Atlantic Ave., and climbed down a manhole in the middle of the street, into a passage way, carved out from the dirt. Squeezing through a narrow hole in a concrete wall, I entered the tunnel.

The space is massive and runs for four city blocks, over a quarter-mile long, four stories deep and dark as shit with rubble strewn all over.

Walt Whitman wrote of the tunnel:

“The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences; however, there will, for a few years yet be many dear ones, to not a few Brooklynites, New Yorkers, and promiscuous crowds besides. For it was here you started to go down the island, in summer. For years, it was confidently counted on that this spot, and the railroad of which it was the terminus, were going to prove the permanent seat of business and wealth that belong to such enterprises. But its glory, after enduring in great splendor for a season, has now vanished—at least its Long Island Railroad glory has. The tunnel: dark as the grave, cold, damp, and silent. How beautiful look earth and heaven again, as we emerge from the gloom! It might not be unprofitable, now and then, to send us mortals—the dissatisfied ones, at least, and that’s a large proportion—into some tunnel of several days’ journey. We’d perhaps grumble less, afterward, at God’s handiwork.”

It definitely ranks as one of the neatest tours I’ve ever been on. Tours are infrequent, but you can check for dates here and make reservations.

Here’s a set of photos that I took while down there.