The impressive stockpile had lain untouched for fifty years, as reported by The New York Times, filled with “water drums, medical supplies, paper blankets, drugs and calorie-packed crackers - an estimated 352,000 of them, sealed in dozens of watertight metal canisters and, it seems, still edible.” Boxes with blanket were labeled “For Use Only After Enemy Attack.”īy the 1960s, about $30 million worth of food were in New York City basements, attracting unwanted critters and vandals over the next couple of decades. According to 6sqft, some of the only inspector guidelines for these community shelters is that they be trash-and debris-free and have a ventilation system that allowed for a “safe and tolerable environment for a specified shelter occupancy time.”Īs we covered, there’s also a secret former fallout shelter under the Brooklyn Bridge! In 2006, a time capsule was discovered by city workers in a vault in one of the masonry foundations of the bridge on the Manhattan side. The latter, more prepared shelters were scarce and usually for high-ranking officials, while most shelters were known as “community shelters” that offered less protection. Naturally, it would usually be in the center of a strong, concrete building, with some shelters complete with ventilation systems, sleeping areas, and food and water supplies. In general, the typical fallout shelter was a room in a building, without windows in order to stop radiation from seeping in.

“I’ve heard stories of some where they were in the basement with sewage pipes dripping down and rats running around…The public ones are probably just large enclosed spaces where they’re able to accommodate a large number of people in a very municipal fashion.”

“It’s all over the map in terms of how well they were designed,” said Jeff Schlegelmilch, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, to Gothamist. During the onset of the Cold War, the federal government was reluctant to fund shelters in urban areas, in favor of ones in suburban backyards.Ī former fallout shelter at the London Terrace apartments in Chelsea. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that in 1966, New York City’s civil defense director discovered that most of the shelters had no supplies. It was largely up to the discretion of inspectors to determine whether a place could be a shelter. What did the average fallout shelter look like? The administration of fallout shelters was slightly strange, in that there may not have been federal standards for their design.

Symbol meaning fallout shelter