[2] It is the oldest railway tunnel beneath a city street in North America that was fully devoted to rail.

It was built mainly to satisfy public demand for creation of a grade-separated right of way for the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad (later Long Island Rail Road) on its way to the South Ferry at the foot of Atlantic Street (later Atlantic Avenue), where passengers could catch ferries to Manhattan.

The similar Murray Hill Tunnel on the New York and Harlem Railroad was built as an open cut around 1836, roofed over around the 1850s, and is now in use for automobile traffic.

For years, it was confidently counted on that this spot, and the railroad of which it was the terminus, were going to prove the permanent seat of business and wealth that belong to such enterprises.

In 1936, the New York City Police Department unsuccessfully attempted to enter the tunnel, in order to look for the body of a hoodlum supposedly buried there.

During the late 1950s, it was sought by two rail historians, George Horn and Martin Schachne, but they did not gain access to the tunnel itself.

With the assistance of a Brooklyn Union Gas Company engineering crew, he then broke through the massive concrete bulkhead wall, which is several feet thick.

He led tours of its interior[9] for his Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, from 1982 until December 17, 2010,[13] when the Department of Transportation terminated his contract, citing safety concerns.

[citation needed] The History Channel series Cities of the Underworld ran a segment ("New York's Secret Societies") on the tunnel in 2008.