Hidden beneath the bustling streets of New York City lies a vast, 7,500-mile network of sewers, tempting the daring and the curious with the promise of lost treasures. From misplaced wallets to elusive pieces of jewelry, these underground passages beckon those willing to brave the murky depths in search of forgotten fortunes.
Last week, the allure of these subterranean riches was on full display when two separate incidents were caught on camera. On Friday night, groups of individuals were seen emerging from manhole covers in Brooklyn, having stealthily navigated the city’s steamy underworld. Authorities believe these were scavenging operations, with participants hunting for valuable items lost to the city’s sewers.
Despite the looming threat of arrest and the undeniable risks to personal safety, these intrepid explorers are undeterred. For them, no gem is too dirty and no coin too encrusted to be worth the adventure. Such escapades have captured public attention over the years, highlighting a persistent fascination with the city’s hidden depths.
One notable incident occurred in 2015, making headlines when Marquis Evans, a part-time worker with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, led two friends into a Brooklyn manhole. Their quest? To find “gold, jewelry, and guns” amid the city’s underground labyrinth, according to police reports at the time.
The trio embarked on several such “scavenger hunts” before authorities caught up with them. Evans, along with companions Damien Nieves and David Hannibal, faced charges of criminal trespassing after their four-hour foray into the sewers. “God knows what they were looking for,” remarked then-police Commissioner Bill Bratton following their arrest.
“God knows what they were looking for,” then-police Commissioner Bill Bratton said following the arrests.
“I know damn sure I wouldn’t be crawling through the sewers of New York, but these three evidently were up to something down there.”
A decade later, the allure of scooping up lost valuables was also the motivation for a different threesome who were arrested for descending into the Brooklyn sewers in April 2025.
One of the men, Willer Green told police at the time, “The reason we went down there is that people lose their gold down there. We got to sell it to make money.”
And the allure of the sewers has apparently always been around — a spate of New York Times articles from the 1800s described claims of jewels being pulled from their depths, while tales of criminals tossing drugs and other stashes into storm drains has filled movies and crime stories over the years.
The age of internet streaming has ratcheted the call of the sewer up another level, with videos from urban explorers cropping up online over the years to give first-person perspectives down the dark depths of subway tunnels and slimy city drain systems.
After the 2015 incident, former Commissioner Bratton said there was little that could be done to prevent foolhardy people from prying up the city’s nearly 200-pound manhole covers and descending into the dangerous tunnels below.
“Entering a sewer without proper authorization and training is illegal, incredibly irresponsible and dangerous,” he said at the time, according to the Times. “The reality is we cannot be everywhere protecting everything from everybody.”
No arrests have been made in the latest spate of Brooklyn sewer treasure hunters, where separate groups of men were seen climbing out of two manhole covers in Gravesend and Williamsburg.
Footage from the Gravesend incident obtained by Flatbush Scoop showed a man prying back a manhole cover from McDonald Ave. around 2 a.m. and stashing it between nearby cars — when seven men proceeded to file out of the ground one at a time.
They each had flashlights and appeared to be wearing boots and overall waders, and milled together around a trio of cars while they stripped off their filthy attire.
The individuals tossed their clothes — and whatever they found in the ground — into the cars, before driving off.
Sources told The Post it was likely that these tunnels were likely up to nothing more than their scavenging predecessors had gotten up to — citing coins, wallets, scrap metal, jewelry or other valuables as their probable targets.
The source noted that urban scavenging of that nature is a more common practice in other countries, but is far from unheard of in New York.
