New York City has another underground mystery on its hands, and this one surfaced steps from one of Manhattan’s busiest transit hubs. The NYC manhole mystery is back in the spotlight after video captured three people wearing overalls and what appeared to be headlamps climbing out of a sewer near Penn Station shortly after 4 a.m.
Video
The footage, posted to TikTok, shows the group emerging one by one from a manhole near West 32nd Street and Seventh Avenue, close to Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. According to NBC News, the person who posted the video said the scene unfolded on Tuesday, August 18.Now, the NYPD is looking into exactly what happened.
“There are no arrests, and the investigation is ongoing,” police said.
City environmental officials also inspected the sewer system around the location. According to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, investigators found no damage to the infrastructure.
That may answer one question, but it does not explain why people keep popping up from below New York streets wearing gear that looks built for underground work.
The latest video follows several strange incidents earlier this year involving groups entering or emerging from manholes in Brooklyn and Queens. In May, videos showed people climbing into and out of sewer access points in areas including Gravesend and Williamsburg. Some resurfaced hours later, while footage from one incident showed people changing clothes after coming back above ground.
However, police have not publicly established that the August incident near Penn Station is connected to those earlier cases.
The similarities have still attracted plenty of attention. Groups in earlier videos also wore protective clothing, carried flashlights or headlamps, and moved through the sewer system during late-night or early-morning hours.
During one Brooklyn incident, video showed seven people coming out of a manhole. Another group was seen emerging near Heyward Street and Bedford Avenue, with NBC reporting that at least three people appeared to be carrying shovels.
Those earlier sightings triggered a more serious underground inspection.
“The NYPD, to make sure there was not a threat to the public, sent their highly trained Emergency Services Unit officers into the sewer system to make sure nothing nefarious had been left behind by the individuals — nothing was found,” police said in June.
So what are they doing down there?
One theory investigators have examined is far less dramatic than the internet speculation surrounding the videos. A senior law enforcement official previously told NBC News that investigators believed some people entering the sewer system could be scavenging for valuables that slipped beneath city streets.
CBS New York also reported in June that police sources believed men spotted in one Brooklyn sewer incident were “treasure hunters” or urban explorers searching underground.
New York’s massive sewer network makes that theory possible, but certainly not safe. The city maintains thousands of miles of sewer lines beneath streets, buildings and neighborhoods, creating an underground system most New Yorkers never see.
DEP officials are making it clear that curiosity is not a reason to explore it.
The department called entering sewers “both illegal and extremely dangerous.”
“Sewers can contain numerous hazards, including noxious and potentially deadly gases, unstable surfaces, flooding risks, and confined spaces,” the DEP said. “For these reasons, members of the public should never enter a pipe, drain, catch basin, manhole, or outfall.”
Those warnings carry extra weight after other sewer exploration incidents around the country and in New York have required emergency rescues.
Still, the mystery surrounding the latest Manhattan group remains. No arrests have been announced, authorities reported no infrastructure damage, and police have not publicly identified the three people seen climbing out near Penn Station.
There is also no confirmed evidence that the people in the latest footage are connected to any earlier group.
For now, New York has a viral video, an active police investigation, and another chapter in a bizarre run of people appearing from places most commuters spend their entire lives walking over.
Whatever is happening beneath the city, somebody keeps finding a reason to go down there.
