Fallout Shelters

If you wander the streets of New York you will routinely pass by buildings with fallout shelter signs on their exterior walls. I didn't notice this until a visit here last year, and some people I've talked to have never noticed them. Sometimes they're hidden by signage or aged and rusted until they're nothing more than just a faded yellow piece of metal. Some are covered in ivy or tucked away inside doorways.

I have always been curious as to whether these shelters still exist and if they do, what is kept inside them. If not, why are the signs still visible throughout the city?

I've seen them on schools and houses, banks, hotels and apartments, so they're really all over the place, and all over America.

I did a bit of research for myself and for my loyal readers (all 4 of you):

The signs were frequently found outside any building that was approved with what the Army Corps of Engineers had determined to be a sufficient amount of ''radiation shielding.'' I believe the rooms that were declared as shelters still required additional modifications for them to be deemed fallout shelters.

By the early 70's 230,000 buildings had been designated as fallout shelters in New York City and the greater area.

When the imminent threat was over, the shelters were no longer needed for their intended purpose.

Since these fallout shelters were stockpiled with so much food and supplies, the city began giving away the food but wasn't very successful. Not too many people were interested in the specially prepared wheat biscuits and jelly so the city started paying contractors to cart the food away or selling it to animal feed manufacturers.

As much as they were meant for security, fallout shelters were also a good marketing tool. In the early 60's a newspaper ad for a housing development here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn offered amenities such as ''Kiddie Pools, Roof-Top Gardens, and a Fallout Shelter." The Dime Savings Bank in Brooklyn (coincidentally, just a block away from the fallout shelter sign I noticed today that inspired me to write this post) offered ''instant money for fallout shelter construction.''

Today most of the shelters have been converted to workshops, storage rooms and probably basement apartments. With the demand for space in this city a fallout shelter is too much space to leave unused even if it is needed in the future.

Some people have kept the shelters stocked and loaded with supplies in case they are ever needed. They would never protect the people of city from a direct attack, but in the case of a nuclear attack somewhere else in the country the shelters could protect their inhabitants from the fallout. To be even safer, however, there could be huge costs involved in renovating the shelters to update them from modern day weapon attacks.

As for why they're still around I am not entirely sure. I came across a snippet of an old article explaining that at one time the city discussed removing all the signs but never did. The signs are an interesting relic from some frightening times in this country and it's always interesting to see where they are located around the city.

If you ever visit New York and walk around with me, I usually point them out whenever I see one.