4. The 12th Avenue cow tunnels
We only have two hidden underground places in NYC to talk about, so don’t go anywhere! In the 19th century, gorgeous Manhattan wasn’t as glamorous as it is today. Its western part, at around 35th Street, was packed with slaughterhouses.
Cattle would be transported from New Jersey and herded up 12th Avenue (now the West Side Highway) so they could meet their doom. But soon enough, the city’s population grew immensely, and along with it grew the number of cars too, and the cows would create snarling gridlock.
People didn’t want the cows to cause traffic troubles, so they came up with the idea of creating tunnels for them to go through. However, what exactly happened with these hidden underground places in NYC is still a mystery for many of us because experts discovered some unconfirmed illustrations of 12th Avenue cow tunnels from the 1870s, but different directors of archaeology say there’s no evidence of such tunnels.
But everything changed after some intense research when experts discovered an official blueprint for a “cow pass” dating back to 1932, which confirms the existence of an incredible 200-foot-long passage beneath 12th Avenue.
However, if you think about venturing into these hidden underground places in NYC, you should know that some people say the tunnels were destroyed, while others say they’re still intact. I guess that until someone official decides to tell us the story, we can never know what was or still is beneath our feet.
