The Mystery of the Tunnels

Lewis Greenstein, a retired city worker, first heard about the Underground Railroad on Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn in 1992, when his mother died and he inherited a building there. At the time, he said, its existence was treated as common knowledge - old people told stories about being scolded as children for playing in hidden tunnels in front of their houses.

In time, Mr. Greenstein noticed some strange things about the basement of his own building, at 233 Duffield, where his parents had had a business since 1953. On the lowest level were two alcoves that seemed to be fireplaces, two shafts leading to street level, and a circular spot on the floor, three feet in diameter, that seemed to have been filled in with stones and cemented over.