The following article was just in the Poughkeepsie Journal today. Sounds like an interesting mystery. Any guesses, my first thought was underground railroad, but would they bother with vaulted ceilings and arched doorways, probably not. Judy Wolf Road repair unearths massive old structure in Ossining By SEAN GORMAN THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: July 5, 2007) OSSINING - Workers who were fixing a sinking road at the Mystic Pointe condominium complex recently unearthed an underground series of rooms that may date to the mid-19th century. The structure, found around early May, includes arched doorways and 15-foot-high vaulted ceilings. It rests next to the exit road leading out of the condo community off Route 9. "It's like a huge underground structure of rooms, all made out of brick masonry, concrete ceilings," Art Haviland, Mystic Pointe's property manager, said last week. Several archeologists and historians have visited the site, but no one can say with certainty what the building was for, Haviland said. Some experts think it may have been a root cellar, and they've suggested it may date to the mid-1800s, Haviland said. The structure's exact size is also a mystery, because workers didn't uncover all of it. In their excavation they found "approximately eight" rooms, Haviland said. Ossining village Mayor William Hanauer, who got to go into the underground chambers about a month ago, said other possibilities raised about its purpose are that it was a wine storage room or a barn for cattle, or part of a tunnel network used to transport things from boats on the Hudson River. "It's like a long hall off of which are other hallways," Hanauer said. "The hallways themselves are sort of divided up into rooms. It was clearly built to be underground." The mayor said one of the bricks unearthed while he was at the site was thought to date to the 1840s. Linda Kiederer, former president of the Yorktown Historical Society, cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that the structure was a stop on the Underground Railroad - a pre-Civil War network of hideouts where former slaves stayed on their way to freedom. She said such large structures weren't built for that purpose. But it seems too elaborate to have been a root cellar, said Kiederer, who learned about the structure's discovery from a reporter. "I do think it was intended for a foundry of some sort, but perhaps never used since the walls aren't blackened," she wrote in an e-mail to The Journal News after viewing photos of the structure online. Mystic Pointe resident Gay Marglin took the photos, posting them on _http://ysqrd.smugmug.com/gallery/2831265_ (http://ysqrd.smugmug.com/gallery/2831265) . "Whoever built it was a real craftsman," Marglin said last week. "The thing looks brand new." Marglin, a member of the condominium's governing board, said the road sank because dirt underneath it was slipping into the structure's openings, including air tunnels leading through its roof toward the surface. The condo complex has been left with a predicament of how to fix the road and what to do about the chambers, Marglin said. One option is to break open the top of the structure and fill it in with earth. An engineer has provided a $50,000 estimate for filling it in, she said. The other option, estimated to be four times as expensive, is to build a retaining wall and cover the openings with custom-made concrete fixtures so the dirt doesn't keep seeping into the openings. Given the price constraints, the association is leaning toward the first -and more destructive -option, Marglin said. "I was hoping we could do something to preserve it," she said. "That doesn't look like it's economically feasible unless somebody steps up to the plate in the next month." Anyone who wants to contact her about the structure can e-mail _gmarglin@rivertownsrealty.com_ (mailto:gmarglin@rivertownsrealty.com) . Elise Godfrey, another Mystic Pointe resident, said the discovery of the red brick facility is interesting but the excavation site is a bit of an eyesore. Condo residents have dubbed it the "Big Dig." It has orange cones and fencing around it, and passers-by may not enter. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.