The Cold War Bunker

The 1950s. The Cold War is raging, the Space Race is escalating, and the superpowers are testing nuclear weapons. Across the country, nervous Americans are building shelters in case the Ruskies launch a sneak attack. Even New Yorkers are getting in on the act, ducking and covering and keeping an eye out for the Red Menace. In fact, during the Korean War, floodlights and barbed wire were stretched across the city’s bridges to keep fifth columnists at bay.

Jump ahead to 2006, and the Soviet Union has collapsed. Nobody got nuked, and most New Yorkers have stopped thinking about the Cold War, until a group of workers inspecting the Brooklyn Bridge make a fascinating discovery. Hidden inside one of the structures on the Manhattan entrance ramp is a room full of boxes and barrels. Upon closer inspection, the workers find that a lot of the boxes are marked “For Use Only After Enemy Attack.” They’d stumbled into a Cold War bunker.

The bunker was full of supplies that you’d need to survive the nuclear holocaust. Workers found boxes of medicine, a bunch of blankets, empty metal drums for holding water or serving as toilets, and approximately 352,000 crackers. Almost everything dated back to either 1957 or 1962, the years of Sputnik and the Cuban Missile Crisis, respectively.

Paranoia ran pretty high back then, but these supplies probably wouldn’t have done any good. In 1959, the government determined that if the Soviets dropped two hydrogen bombs on the city, about 6.1 million people would turn into toast. Chances are good the Bridge would, too.