“Cincinnati’s ‘hole in the ground,’ the unfinished rapid transit subway-and-surface system that never saw a rail, may really be an ace in the hole. By 13 January 1962, the Enquirer reported that the project was in motion: The idea sat on the shelf for the 1950s, but got legs again as the Cold War heated up in the early 1960s.
It was estimated at that time that the subway tunnels could accommodate 25,000 people during a nuclear attack.
Possibilities of converting the underground tunnel into such a shelter are being studied.” “In the event of an enemy attack, Cincinnatians may look with favor upon the abandoned $6 million rapid transit subway system as a handy bomb shelter. Then, on 18 February 1951, the Enquirer reported that Cincinnati officials were again looking at the abandoned subway for civil defense purposes: As early as 1941, just after the United States entered World War II, some folks made a preliminary study of the subway as an air-raid shelter. Someone suggested that Cincinnati’s empty subway tunnels might finally have found a purpose. However, as the idea of “bomb shelters” gradually evolved into the concept of “fallout shelters,” Cincinnati planners looked around and asked themselves, “Where can we park several thousand citizens underground while radioactive debris settles gently on the nuclear wasteland outside?” No home may be termed completely ‘modern’ without one.”Īlthough the Enquirer reported a couple of examples, the home shelter was always more of an oddity than a trend. To escape these monsters he is building a new sort of cave - the bomb shelter. “Man, in the course of what he calls progress, is creating war monsters. On Christmas Eve 1950, the Enquirer announced that the new trend in home décor was the personal bomb shelter: It remains among the stranger articles ever published by a Cincinnati newspaper.
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