Preoccupied with geographical trivia, my 15-year-old son recently hit me with a “did you know?” that prompted a longer debate, that being that there is allegedly a shipwreck dating back to the 1600s embedded in the earth below Manhattan. I scoffed and asked where he heard that, and he dutifully texted me the video below. Now, I have zero idea who “Cheddar" are, but I’m usually a little skeptical about these sorts of endeavors. But, I sat down and watched and it seems genuinely pretty well researched, for whatever that’s worth. Sure, the shipwreck thing is pretty goddamn novel, but there was another fleeting allusion buried (sorry) here that really caught my interest.
As you’ll hear around the 2:42 mark, the young Cheddarette says that there was a “small, boarded up room” with its walls and ceiling “covered in mirrors” discovered about six feet below the intersection of The Bowery and Canal Street. She doesn’t say when this mysterious chamber was discovered — or any other details, for that matter — only that “no explanation has ever been found.”
I immediately hit Google and started searching for more info, but only came up with a Reddit board discussing the very same video. No one else, that I could uncover, ever mentions the strange discovery.
Incidentally, that’s not me in the mysterious room of mirrors. That’s me in the elevator of my dentist’s office in midtown, but I though it fit the bill.
But WHY would there a roomful of mirrors below Bowery & Canal? Who built it? For what purpose? Is it still there? Was it re-sealed up?
Have YOU ever heard of this? Weigh in....
I was also intrigued, and found a long but very interesting 1989 article from the publication 7 Days. Much of the information in the video is there. It mentions the mirrored room as a story among many others. I couldn’t find anything else. Link: https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/19/7-days-the-city-below/
Posted by: Racheal | September 17, 2021 at 02:21 AM