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A Race to Solve the Mystery of the Subterranean Chambers
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By BARBARA WHITAKER
Published: July 14, 2007
OSSINING, N.Y.
Gay Marglin
In Ossining, N.Y., the craftsmanship of subterranean rooms, believed to date to the mid-19th century, raises questions about their purpose.
It started with an ever-expanding sinkhole at the entrance of the Mystic Pointe condominiums here and led to an excavation this spring that revealed an underground complex of brick chambers with vaulted ceilings.
Now the subterranean structure, believed to date to the mid-19th century, is a mystery just begging to be solved. Is it as pedestrian as a root cellar? Or as storied as a stop on the Underground Railroad? Does it stretch beyond the cluster of at least nine known rooms to connect to tunnels elsewhere?
An ad-hoc group of residents, local historians and archaeologists in this Westchester County suburb is racing to figure it out before road repairs that could lead to the destruction of the rooms, which sit under a wooded area that had been part of a Victorian estate and once was owned by a Catholic church.
“The issue has become a major problem for the condominium as a whole,” said Anne Marie Leone, a Mystic Pointe resident who writes the “Then and Now” feature in The Rivertowns Enterprise and has lately spent much of her free time trying to solve the mystery. “There’s a group of people like me who say, ‘It’s history, let’s save it.’ There are others who say, ‘This is a real danger on our property and let’s get it off before something major happens.’ ”
Those concerned with saving the structure have been consulting historians, tracing ownership of the property and scrutinizing the bricks used in the construction, in the hope of finding out more about its past.
Ms. Leone, for example, has spent many an evening since the discovery this spring poring over maps and doing research about former owners. But while she can tell you all about Orlando B. Potter, who bought the property as a summer residence about 1870, and a fair amount about bricks found there, she has yet to find anything that even makes note of the structures.
Lucille Lewis Johnson, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, said that when she recently viewed the site, she found a network of about 12 rooms, some running north-south, others east-west. The common thinking is that the rooms were some kind of storage facility, but the size of the structure and the craftsmanship of the brickwork indicate that it might have been more than that.
The rooms are larger and higher — with ceilings estimated to be as high as 15 feet — than would be common in a typical root cellar. Several of the doorways have metal fixtures on the outside, an indication that there were once doors there, and it appears that there was more than one entrance to the network.
The top of the structure is vented in several places, and historians say the construction is similar to that of wine cellars found at nearby Croton Point Park. Experts have ruled out that the hidden rooms were built as part of the Underground Railroad, but there is much speculation that escaped slaves might have stopped there. So far, there has been nothing to suggest any connection to Sing Sing prison, a mile away.
Adding to the intrigue are reports that there are other brick archways in parts of the overgrown woods near the structure, just off Route 9, Old Albany Post Road, as well as reports of a similar archway a quarter-mile to the west, near the Hudson River.
While word of the underground chambers was news to condo owners, it turned out a fair number of the village’s residents had been going in and out of them for decades. Among them is Carl Oechsner, 71, a history teacher in the Ossining schools for 38 years and a member of the local Friends of History, Croton, who used to take small groups to visit.
Mr. Oechsner said that a former student, now a police lieutenant, recalled playing there as a child and being told that the rooms stretched all the way to the Metro-North Railroad tracks, which run along the river, and about a small dock where food and cattle could be unloaded and moved through the rooms.
“The reason we want to know about these is not only architectural,” he said. “It could also give us information on the lifestyle and the way people lived.”
A chain-link fence was put up Thursday to keep people out of the area where the structures were found, and metal plates have been placed over the collapsing portion of the roadway, which is just outside the entrances to the condo complex and St. Augustine Catholic Church and School.
Gay Marglin, a condominium board member who has been inside the rooms, said there were two options for solving the road problem. The less expensive, estimated at about $50,000, would mean breaking the structure open, partly taking the walls down, and then filling the area in. The more expensive route, likely costing $200,000, would be to secure all the openings — including numerous vents — and then build a retaining wall to support the roadway. “Unless somebody comes along to save the day for the structure, I think we will have to go with the less expensive option,” Ms. Marglin said.
The mayor of Ossining, William R. Hanauer, said that he would like for the village to play a role in protecting the property, but that there have not been any substantial discussions with the condominium representatives about what that might be.
Susan Dublin, a member of the Westchester County Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, offered her perspective. “If we’re interested in the historic buildings at Croton Point, we should be interested in saving this,” she said. “It’s part of the historic landscape of the 19th century, and it is a unique structure. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/nyregion/14mystery.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
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Sign In to E-Mail or Save This Print Reprints Share
DiggFacebookNewsvinePermalink
By BARBARA WHITAKER
Published: July 14, 2007
OSSINING, N.Y.
Gay Marglin
In Ossining, N.Y., the craftsmanship of subterranean rooms, believed to date to the mid-19th century, raises questions about their purpose.
It started with an ever-expanding sinkhole at the entrance of the Mystic Pointe condominiums here and led to an excavation this spring that revealed an underground complex of brick chambers with vaulted ceilings.
Now the subterranean structure, believed to date to the mid-19th century, is a mystery just begging to be solved. Is it as pedestrian as a root cellar? Or as storied as a stop on the Underground Railroad? Does it stretch beyond the cluster of at least nine known rooms to connect to tunnels elsewhere?
An ad-hoc group of residents, local historians and archaeologists in this Westchester County suburb is racing to figure it out before road repairs that could lead to the destruction of the rooms, which sit under a wooded area that had been part of a Victorian estate and once was owned by a Catholic church.
“The issue has become a major problem for the condominium as a whole,” said Anne Marie Leone, a Mystic Pointe resident who writes the “Then and Now” feature in The Rivertowns Enterprise and has lately spent much of her free time trying to solve the mystery. “There’s a group of people like me who say, ‘It’s history, let’s save it.’ There are others who say, ‘This is a real danger on our property and let’s get it off before something major happens.’ ”
Those concerned with saving the structure have been consulting historians, tracing ownership of the property and scrutinizing the bricks used in the construction, in the hope of finding out more about its past.
Ms. Leone, for example, has spent many an evening since the discovery this spring poring over maps and doing research about former owners. But while she can tell you all about Orlando B. Potter, who bought the property as a summer residence about 1870, and a fair amount about bricks found there, she has yet to find anything that even makes note of the structures.
Lucille Lewis Johnson, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, said that when she recently viewed the site, she found a network of about 12 rooms, some running north-south, others east-west. The common thinking is that the rooms were some kind of storage facility, but the size of the structure and the craftsmanship of the brickwork indicate that it might have been more than that.
The rooms are larger and higher — with ceilings estimated to be as high as 15 feet — than would be common in a typical root cellar. Several of the doorways have metal fixtures on the outside, an indication that there were once doors there, and it appears that there was more than one entrance to the network.
The top of the structure is vented in several places, and historians say the construction is similar to that of wine cellars found at nearby Croton Point Park. Experts have ruled out that the hidden rooms were built as part of the Underground Railroad, but there is much speculation that escaped slaves might have stopped there. So far, there has been nothing to suggest any connection to Sing Sing prison, a mile away.
Adding to the intrigue are reports that there are other brick archways in parts of the overgrown woods near the structure, just off Route 9, Old Albany Post Road, as well as reports of a similar archway a quarter-mile to the west, near the Hudson River.
While word of the underground chambers was news to condo owners, it turned out a fair number of the village’s residents had been going in and out of them for decades. Among them is Carl Oechsner, 71, a history teacher in the Ossining schools for 38 years and a member of the local Friends of History, Croton, who used to take small groups to visit.
Mr. Oechsner said that a former student, now a police lieutenant, recalled playing there as a child and being told that the rooms stretched all the way to the Metro-North Railroad tracks, which run along the river, and about a small dock where food and cattle could be unloaded and moved through the rooms.
“The reason we want to know about these is not only architectural,” he said. “It could also give us information on the lifestyle and the way people lived.”
A chain-link fence was put up Thursday to keep people out of the area where the structures were found, and metal plates have been placed over the collapsing portion of the roadway, which is just outside the entrances to the condo complex and St. Augustine Catholic Church and School.
Gay Marglin, a condominium board member who has been inside the rooms, said there were two options for solving the road problem. The less expensive, estimated at about $50,000, would mean breaking the structure open, partly taking the walls down, and then filling the area in. The more expensive route, likely costing $200,000, would be to secure all the openings — including numerous vents — and then build a retaining wall to support the roadway. “Unless somebody comes along to save the day for the structure, I think we will have to go with the less expensive option,” Ms. Marglin said.
The mayor of Ossining, William R. Hanauer, said that he would like for the village to play a role in protecting the property, but that there have not been any substantial discussions with the condominium representatives about what that might be.
Susan Dublin, a member of the Westchester County Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, offered her perspective. “If we’re interested in the historic buildings at Croton Point, we should be interested in saving this,” she said. “It’s part of the historic landscape of the 19th century, and it is a unique structure. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/nyregion/14mystery.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
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