Bomb shelter discovered in Brooklyn Bridge

[NNN0LHI]

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=4012290

Hidden in a dank vault in the Brooklyn Bridge was an unbelievable find

Eyewitness News' Tim Fleischer

(New York -WABC, March 21, 2006) - Cases of crackers and mountains of medical supplies; stockpiles, not for the war on terror, but for the cold war more than fifty years ago. These provisions weren't locked away inside some emergency center, they were found inside the Brooklyn Bridge.

Eyewitness News reporter Tim Fleischer is live at Fulton Ferry with the story.
Hidden in a dank, dusty vault in the foundation of the Brooklyn Bridge was an unbelievable find.

Discovered by Joe Vaccaro and other DOT workers inspecting the bridge, these relics of another age, not long ago, but long forgotten: stacks of old civil defense supplies, even unopened tins of crackers. The found 350,000 of these crackers.

One box, marked "Medical Supplies for Aid Stations: Use Only After An Enemy Attack." They worried about things like that in the middle of the cold war with Russia, when missiles stood at the ready.

They built and stocked many shelters like this one.

[skooooo]

1. Wonder if someone already got the morphine supply....

...lol. A friend who knew about such places said the morphine was always stolen from the kits.

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. They had an air raid shelter in my old building

A couple of friends went down there one day and found out that there were drugs in the survival kits. They didn't know what they found but they decided to take all the pills they could find and put them all in one kit. One of the guys put the kit in the trunk of his car and forgot about it. Unfortunately, when he decided to go to Canada for a vacation, they decided to search his car. The first thing they found was the kit with the pills. Turned out it was about 1000 phenobarbitals. He ended up getting busted for transporting narcotics over international borders.

[NYC]

2. I hope they save those crackers.

They could come in handy. :)

P.S. That was on the Brooklyn side. I wonder if we have anything on the Manhattan side. Perhaps some cheese, to go with Brooklyn's crackers.

[icymist]

3. They should preserve this as a Cold War relic.

eom

[DURHAM D]

4. If one really started looking around they would find these sorts

of supplies all over the country in the basements of public libraries, public schools, universities, government buildings, armories, etc.

In the mid-80s I worked in the main library of a major university and the storage areas were filled with 50 gallon containers of food, medical supplies, gas masks, etc. The problem was that the government had never told institutions that they could throw it out.

[Generic Other]

6. Isn't that the best? A troll fallout shelter!

Reminds me of Dr. Strangelove. Underground shelters for bigwigs. Who knew of this place? Civil authorities? Was it a place only a few had clearance to know about or a public facility?

A troll fallout shelter! Gotta wonder about those Cold Warriors!

[buddysmellgood]

7. What? No duct tape?

[countryjake]

8. I feel so safe it took them 40 yrs. to inspect that part of the bridge!