Friday, April 21, 2006

The Catacombs under the Blue Wall




One day last week, they put up a new wooden fence around the empty corner lot and painted it blue. A bunch of earthmoving equipment arrived and within the next few days a couple of things happened: first, the blue wall became the billboard for every musical, record or movie company and second, they dug out a lot of New York City schist.

What I wanted to see, and couldn't,was what was in the caves under the blue wall. You can see what I'm talking about here:





Those arches had been buried and sealed under the sidewalk for about six or seven decades, at least since the last building was built on the property. (Search this blog for "Goodbye to Bobo's" to see what it looked like.)

I talked to some of the guys working on the site. They were kind enough to bring a little old lady a couple of bricks up from deep inside there, but reported that the catacombs had contained nothing more than some rusted cans and a lot of rat droppings.

What?
No copies of the Constitution?
No secret Mafia files?
No lost or stolen or missing artworks?

Nope.

Some nice old bricks though.

I don't believe them for a minute.



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