Brooklyn Eagle article discussing the underground "pedestrian tunnels" connecting Jehovah Witness buildings in Brooklyn Heights.
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/watchtower-tunnels-mysterious-lingering-remnants-ministerial-heights-presence-2013-10-16
October, 2013 article on how the Kushner Co. acquired the Watchtower building and will determine fate of the tunnels:
https://therealdeal.com/2013/10/16/watchtower-tunnels-unlikely-to-be-around-much-longer/
This is adjacent to the Columbia Waterfront and Red Hook Piers area, an international shipping district.
https://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2017/4/24/jehovahs-witnesses-start-closing-their-brooklyn-heights-tunnels
The religious organization has sold numerous Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO properties to the Kushner Cos., which Jared Kushner headed until he stepped aside to serve as senior adviser to his father-in-law, President Trump.
Kushner Cos. and its investment partners paid $340 million for the Watchtower's Brooklyn Heights headquarters complex at 25-30 Columbia Heights — which has an iconic red neon sign that says “Watchtower” on it.
In DUMBO, Kushner Cos. and its investment partners paid $345 million for 85 Jay St., a parking lot with about 1 million square feet of development rights. And the company and its investment partners paid $375 million for a complex with former Bible-printing plants on Prospect, Adams, Sands and Pearl streets that it has turned into a techie-friendly office campus called DUMBO Heights.
WOW! IN APRIL, 2017, THEY CLOSED OFF THE TUNNEL NETWORK AND POURED CONCRETE IN THEM!!
The Watchtower, which has sold off many of its Brooklyn Heights properties, is starting to shut down the tunnels that connect them. Last week, the Jehovah's Witnesses deactivated one of the tunnels that connect their big Brooklyn Heights residential buildings by filling it with concrete.
The Watchtower's pedestrian passageways form an underground network extending from 124 Columbia Heights, which overlooks the Promenade, to The Towers, a former hotel on the corner of Clark and Willow streets.
The Watchtower closed off part of this underground network on Monday, April 17, 2017.
Andrew Porter, who has lived in Brooklyn Heights since 1968, saw a truck outside 124 Columbia Heights pouring concrete into the tunnel “through a raised access hatch” that day, he told the Brooklyn Eagle.
The concrete-filled tunnel stretches between 124 Columbia Heights and 107 Columbia Heights, which is a gated 11-story residential property with a landscaped courtyard.
City Department of Transportation permits indicate that both a concrete truck and “cellular concrete” pumping equipment were needed for the tunnel deactivation.
Cellular concrete, which is also called Foamcrete, is a lightweight cement-based material with lots of gas bubbles in it.
According to the Transportation Department permits, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York was in charge of the job.
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Are_we__sure ago
Jared Kushner's company didn't.
The JW filed paperwork with the city in 2009 for this work. Probably because it made it easier to sell off individual buildings.