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RAT PITS OF NEW YORK - THE MULBERRY BEND

~Herman Melville

Saunter down Water Street near that movie set-like section underneath the Brooklyn Bridge and keep thine eyes peeled for a squat brick building that the postmen call #273. That is where the 'lore of a local man named Kit Burns took on its infamy.

Burns ran a well-kept tavern, buzzing with all manner of waterfront types of late 19th century New York. The bar men made good business but the real attraction was the fighting pits that earned the "Sportsman's Hall" its far-reaching reputation. Rats are plentiful along the East River so ol' Burns-ey had no difficulty procuring droves of the wily beasts while his dogs, terriers and ferret chasers, furnished their particular brand of entertainment.

A burlap sack of rats (10-stone) is emptied into the pit which is set up like an amphitheatre of sorts with vile men crowded in on the rough-hewn benches. The dog then goes to town making bloody work of as many rats as he can in the given "time," which is set by the screaming, stomping, blasphemously elated men who gamble upon this venture. Burns' dogs are the gladiators of the night and highly-regarded and even smothered with heroic affections in victory.

One eye witness recalls that some men would, "catch up the dog in their arms, and press it to their bosom in a frenzy of joy, or kiss it as if it were a human being, unmindful or careless of the fact that all this while the animal is smeared with the blood of its victims. The scene is disgusting beyond description."

Rat pits were actually a common attraction in old New York, a miniaturized gladiator affair with all the pomp and primal affections of the ancient Colosseum but none have gained such infamy as Kit Burns' Sporting Hall. We all would do well to remember the crass, ungodly beginnings of a town as tony and cosmopolitan as our modern day New York, Mulberry Bend is here to help.

Sorry for the absences friends, MB will be back up and running now so be sure to come back for more lurid tales...

MB

via themulberrybend.blogspot.com

BROOKLYN'S PASSAGE OF ACHERON via THE MULBERRY BEND

BROOKLYN'S PASSAGE OF ACHERON

There is a secret tunnel they say, the tomb of a dead railroad car flipped over on its side like an iron whale and buried beneath Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue since 1861. Since then it has been the source of a flurry of folklore stories, hauntings, legends, and lurid secrets.

Some say Civil War spies buried the mysteriously missing pages of John Wilkes Booth's diary down there in a brass box. Others claim the tunnel holds weaponry from the notorious Smoky Hollow gang, bootlegging treasures, clues of 19th century espionage, and plenty more.

In 1861, Walt Whitman wrote a column in the Brooklyn Standard where he describes "the old tunnel, that used to lie there underground, a passage of Acheron like solemnity and darkness, now all closed up and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences..."

The tunnel was rediscovered in 1981 by engineering student-turned-Brooklyn's own Indiana Jones, Bob Diamond. Diamond spent years in search of the tunnel and its supposed secrets. After scouring ancient engineering documents, obtaining city permissions, and crawling on his belly through 100ft of Brooklyn soot he was finally rewarded when he was poked through a hastily constructed brick and cobble wall and felt a blast of cold air rushing out from the 120 year old cave.

Currently there is a documentary is in the works exploring his great find and this amazing story. This trailer is pretty good insight to the story...

The tunnel was originally commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt's LIRR in 1844 when the nuisance of train-related pedestrian bloodshed was gumming up his all important train schedules. A small army of Irish workers did the digging, known later as sandhogs, using the cut and cover method and in truth, it became New York's very first subway.

By the 1850's the tunnels usefulness was waning so a contractor named Electus Lichtfield was hired to fill in the tunnel once and for all, but these being the glory days of New York construction corruption, graft and all around corner-cutting, Lichtfield does not such thing. Instead, in the interest of making a grand ole' profit, he walls in the tunnel on both ends, covers up the other entrances with cartloads of brick and dirt, and get some his "friends" at City Hall to confirm that the tunnel was gone forever...

Bob Diamond's incredible story of rediscovering the tunnel eventually uncovers Lichtfield's scam but his great con turned out to leave something of a legacy for New Yorkers in search of a little intrigue. Still, there are two areas of the tunnel that have not been opened up and Bob Diamond believes that Booth's diary and other lurid artifacts may still be entombed there. Diamond is now the official curator of this great piece of NYC archeology and occasionally runs tours of the defunct tunnel that Whitman called "dark as the grave, cold, damp, and silent."

There is a great collection of in-depth tunnel-related articles here: http://www.brooklynrail.net/proj_aatunnel.html

You can also read the story at Curious Expeditions: http://curiousexpeditions.org/?cat=35

~MB

Jodhaa A Rajput Princess

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