3. There’s a Cold War Bomb Shelter on the Manhattan Side of the Brooklyn Bridge
In 2006, a veritable time capsule was discovered by city workers in a vault in one of the masonry foundations on the Manhattan side of the bridge. As reported by The New York Times, the impressive stockpile had lain untouched for fifty years. Inside the vaults workers found “water drums, medical supplies, paper blankets, drugs, and calorie-packed crackers — an estimated 352,000 of them, sealed in dozens of watertight metal canisters and, it seems, still edible.” Boxes with blankets were labeled “For Use Only After Enemy Attack.”
Many boxes were stamped with two key dates, continued The Times, “1957, when the Soviets launched the Sputnik satellite, and 1962, when the Cuban missile crisis seemed to bring the world to the precipice of nuclear destruction.” There were also “several dozen boxes” containing sealed bottles of Dextran, an antithrombotic medication.