The Misterio Tremendum

Was gonna do a review of Santogold, but this was just too much. Picked this up on BLDG BLOG the other day…

“Anybody know if people are still fishing in Manhattan basements in buildings constructed over still flowing streams? Recall a story about that in the NYT some 30-35 years ago.”

More here.

Much of all of this “fishing in basements” craziness centers around something called the Vielé Map, named for its maker Egbert Ludovicus Viele. Vielé was a civil engineer (among other things), who basically superimposed Manhattan’s street grid on its once above-ground water systems.

There have been reports over the past century or so of basements in Manhattan flooding on account of underground water systems finding their way through cracks in the foundations of buildings. One can imagine situations where maybe a forgotten waterway leads under a given residence, as many of these streams were simply built over in creating what is now New York City.

The idea of the possibility of people actually taking advantage of these underground streams by ice-fishing through the foundations of their homes is absolutely crazy. I’ve really got to add that this is basically speculation and urban legend based on stories passed down… but possible?

Actually there are places where this happens. At the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul you have a cathedral sized room underground that is lined by 9 meter high marble columns. The room can hold 80,000 cubic meters of water, which is just ridiculous if you think about it. And I think you can catch fish in it.

I am reading Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends where he talks briefly in one of his essays (its a book of essays, his first nonfiction publication) about how until very recently, there were still dark spaces on maps to be filled in. This inevitably conjures up a depressing, its all been done/nothing new under the sun/Indiana Jones was a big lie - gut feeling. But in filling in those dark places, we have inevitably created new ones that lead inside, and underground, and, maybe, as bldg so nicely puts it, into large rooms that smell of water where six men sit around an opening in the floor “holding fishing poles in the darkness.”

Geoff, man. Keep it up.