close
close

Bootleg tunnels may have been discovered in the Atlantic Highlands

Six minute read

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS – In the 1920s and early 1930s, the Atlantic Highlands had a special distinction.

“During Prohibition, it was considered the illegal capital of the eastern United States,” said local historian Greg Caggiano. “It was a place for numerous gangsters and rum runners.”

One of them, Andy Richard, lived on West Highland Ave. 68 – a two-bedroom bungalow that he later rented to notorious crime boss Vito Genovese. Local lore has it that Richard used a network of underground tunnels to facilitate his illicit liquor trade.

Now, after a century of whispers about it, there may be evidence.

History of the Jersey Shore Mob: Mafia boss Vito Genovese lived in these houses in Monmouth County

A construction crew at Fireman's Memorial Field, located directly across from Richard's former bungalow and on land he once owned, uncovered an underground shaft last week while clearing an old field house to make way for three single-family homes.

“They found this hole in the ground, stopped work and notified the community,” said Atlantic Highlands Mayor Lori Hohenleitner. “The next day we issued a stop work order.”

Access to the shaft, located on private property along Avenue C, is closed for now to prevent curious people from exploring it.

“Just from me being there and watching, it seems like it goes pretty deep into a larger space,” Caggiano said.

On Wednesday, Hohenleitner said, the immediate area will be scanned with ground-penetrating radar to get a clearer picture of what lies beneath.

“From one side it definitely looks like a tunnel,” said Caggiano, who has worked extensively with the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society. “Another historian pointed out that it kind of looks like a bomb shelter. However, if that were the case, there would probably be people who remember it. Right now the consensus is that this is probably one of the smuggling tunnels we've heard about in the last 100 years, but we can't say for sure yet.”

The gangsters among us: Organized crime has a long history on the Jersey Shore

Alcohol, gangsters and a shabby garage

According to contemporary newspaper accounts, Andy Richard lived at 68 West Highland Avenue from 1924 until his death in 1964, although it is known that he rented the apartment to Genovese from 1953 to 1959 – until Genovese was incarcerated in federal prison from 1959 until his death was in 1969.

Atlantic Highlands was an ideal location for bootleggers like Richard and fellow gangster Al Lillien, another resident of the area at the time.

“Geography led them there,” Caggiano said. “They were in close proximity to New York City, so they were able to put some distance between their business activities and their homes.”

It's no coincidence that Richard opened his business where he was, four blocks from Sandy Hook Bay.

“It’s one of the first stops on the Jersey Shore,” Caggiano said. “If you tried to bring alcohol to Sea Bright, Long Branch, Asbury Park, etc., the alcohol came from New York by water, by train, by truck, to the Atlantic Highlands and also to the Highlands and then was further spread out the Jersey Shore.”

Richard also owned the property now known as Fireman's Field – where the shaft beneath the field house was discovered just as it was being bulldozed to make way for housing.

“As far as we know, he had a car repair shop or some kind of workshop there, and it was so that the trucks could come in and they would close the doors, and if you looked from the outside, you would think that someone was just getting work.” made in her truck,” Caggiano said. “But they would bring the alcohol up from the tunnels or from some underground room. They would load the trucks and the trucks would hit the road.”

The Jersey Shore during Prohibition: Sheriff's Office vs. Coast Guard in Prohibition-era Ocean County

Caggiano has been searching for information on this network for years, interviewing Richard's descendants and other longtime locals.

“When I talked to people for my own research, everyone said, 'Yeah, if there are tunnels in the city, it's probably at Fireman's Fieldhouse,' but no one had any proof of that,” Caggiano said. “So this discovery makes sense for a lot of people.”

There are many unanswered questions, including whether the Prohibition-era tunnels were used solely for storage purposes or to transport alcohol underground to various locations.

“I would say both,” Caggiano said. “I spoke to relatives of the gangsters, not about them being alive at the time, but based on family lore or passed down stories. There are some who say that the tunnels were actually just storage shafts and didn't go for miles, and then there are some who claim that there are tunnels that literally run up from Beacon Hill (Country Club, three quarters of a mile away) , because that's where Al Lillien lived. And there are people who have these huge systems all over the Bayshore that stretch for miles.”

The most haunted house on the Jersey Shore? Strange new developments at the Atlantic Highlands mansion

Last week, Caggiano explored the basement of a nearby house, which also has a hidden tunnel underneath.

“Around the time this all happened (at Fireman's Field), they were working in their basement, drilled a hole in the basement wall and found what looked like a tunnel shaft from their basement – and it's pretty close to where is located (Fireman's Field). The shaft was discovered, so there is probably a connection to it,” Caggiano said. “It basically looks exactly like we saw it from the other side.”

Is a centuries-old district puzzle about to be solved?

“There are people who have been waiting for this their whole lives,” Caggiano said. “It’s very exciting.”

A plea to discover

The property with the aging fieldhouse was recently sold by Fire Department Inc., the nonprofit that owned the property for decades.

“It was purchased and the planning board approved a subdivision to put three houses there because that neighborhood is zoned residential,” Hohenleitner said.

Like most long-time residents, she had heard the tunnel rumors over the years. So she wasn't shocked when she heard the news of the shaft.

“My first reaction was, ‘Is there anything historically significant down there?’” she said.

Atlantic Highlands: Fish falls from the sky and smashes the windshield of a Tesla car

The current resident of Richard's former home – the block Genovese rents – has agreed to allow the county to use ground-penetrating radar there, too.

“The main reason we do this is security, to make sure nothing is undermined,” Hohenleitner said. “When it is safe, we will make a decision whether further exploration is a good idea, something we want to do.”

At last week's Borough Council meeting, the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society offered the services of local historian and author Jack Grodeska, who is a trained archaeologist, to assist with the investigation.

Caggiono thinks that's a good idea.

“Get someone in there and film it so we can see what’s in there, and get someone in there who can date the structure so we can know definitively if this is a smuggling tunnel?” he said. “If there's anything down there that suggests it was built before the atomic age, then it's not a bomb shelter. Look for artifacts – maybe there are broken bottles down there, or maybe full bottles, who knows.”

Whatever is found should be given to the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society, Caggiano said, “so we can show future generations” what really happened beneath the community.

Jerry Carino is a community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues of the Jersey Shore. Contact him at [email protected].

You may also like...