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<\/a><\/p>\nBuilt in 1847, it resembles many of the elegant single-family houses on the block, with its red brick facade, long windows, and brownstone trim around the entryway. <\/p>\n
But take a closer look, and you\u2019ll notice some oddities. For starters, the windows are black, and no curtains or blinds hang behind them. <\/p>\n
No personal effects sitin the windows or on the stoop, like a planter or a mat for muddy shoes. And the garden level is blocked off by an industrial-style cover with a red FDNY-labeled pipe by the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s with this impersonal, almost creepily empty house\u2014which looks similarly empty in this 1940 photo?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a house at all but a deftly designed subway ventilation shaft. And it\u2019s one of several fake row houses hiding in New York\u2019s residential streetscape, tasked with a secret purpose.<\/p>\n The story of 58 Joralemon\u2019s conversion from dwelling to decoy begins in 1908, when IRT trains were extended from Bowling Green in Manhattan to the new Brooklyn Borough Hall stop, according to Atlas Obscura<\/a>.<\/p>\n IRT engineers needed to ventilate the new subway tunnel, and they decided 58 Joralemon Street would be the optimal place for a vent. By this time, the house was already a multi-resident building. IRT officials purchased it and gutted the interior. <\/p>\n \u201cBeyond the front doors are walls covered with electric panels and switches, and a huge series of catwalks and stairs that lead nine stories below to the subway tracks,\u201d wrote Suzanne Spellen<\/a> at Brownstoner. <\/p>\n \u201cIn addition to being ventilation, the house is an emergency exit from the tunnel that leaves Brooklyn and travels under the river to the Bowling Green station,\u201d continued Spellen.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how many fake row houses exist in New York; this isn\u2019t the kind of information that\u2019s easy to find. But up in the Bronx, there\u2019s an entire faux development holding a secret behind its gates.<\/p>\n This row house community lines Bruckner Boulevard between East 142nd and East 144th Streets in the Mott Haven neighborhood. <\/p>\n The homes don\u2019t seem very New York; they\u2019re more like townhouse condos in an upscale southern suburb. They do have architectural details like pediments over windows and entryways, perhaps an attempt to blend into the South Bronx cityscape.<\/p>\n Too bad they\u2019re nothing more than facades masking a Con Ed substation<\/a>. Officially known as the Mott Haven substation, it was built in 2007. Presumably the fake houses went up at that time as well.<\/p>\n Why such an elaborate cover for a necessary public utility that creates the electricity allowing New Yorkers to run their air conditioners and digital devices? According to a 2008 New York Times article<\/a> about the substation, Con Ed is just trying to be a good neighbor.<\/p>\n \u201cYears ago, few would have mistaken a substation for an impressive apartment building, especially in a neighborhood like Mott Haven, filled with warehouses and factories,\u201d wrote the Times\u2018 Ken Belson. <\/p>\n \u201cBut the substation there, with its red and tan brick exterior, faux windows and canopied entrance, certainly does not look like a hub for 345-kilovolt cables, multimillion-dollar transformers, and circuit breakers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n