Think you know everything there is to know about New York City? Check out some of its best kept secrets and test your knowledge. How many did you get?
1. There’s a bunch of gold underground
[Giphy]Twenty-five percent of the world’s gold bullion is stored in a vault 80 feet under the Federal Reserve Bank on Wall Street.
2. Ladies can show their boobies if they want
[Giphy]It’s not a widely promoted law, and we’re sure you’d get some funny looks, but women are free to walk around topless if it takes their fancy – as long as it’s not for business.
3. Your smokes aren’t legal
[Giphy]If you smoke, chances are you’ve been puffing on illegal cigarettes. Six out of every 10 smokes sold in NYC are smuggled in illegally from other states.
4. There’s a secret train station
[Daily Mail]You don’t have to run through a magic wall to get there like in Harry Potter, but there is a secret train station in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. President Roosevelt used it to hide the fact he was paralyzed.
5. There’s free gold in the street
[NY Post]There’s so many pieces of gold, diamond and other precious metals in the cracks of New York City streets, you could make over $800 a week if you decided to mine it. Unless this guy beats you to it.
6. Einstein’s eyes are locked up in NYC
[Deviant Art/The Tytan]World-renowned genius Albert Einstein’s eyeballs are stored in a safe deposit box in the city. They were given to Einstein’s eye doctor by the surgeon who removed his brain for experiments after his death.
7. There’s things living in your drinking water
[Giphy]Every time you drink a glass of tap water, you are also consuming tiny little shrimp called codepods. They were added to help keep the water clean.
8. Some houses aren’t houses at all
[Untapped Cities]There are some fake houses in NYC that are there to hide secret entrances for subway maintenance. (The one in the middle is fake).
9. Most crosswalk buttons don’t work
[New York Times]The majority of crosswalk buttons in NYC do absolutely nothing to change the lights. The city didn’t want to pay to have them removed when they moved to an automated system. People still like pushing them though.
10. There’s a private island that’s probably haunted
[AM New York]If you die in NYC and nobody claims your body, you are buried on a secret, private island off the coast of the Bronx. Almost 1 million bodies have been buried there.
