What sets this action apart from the countless conflicts, large and small, that have unfolded over recent decades, is the specter of nuclear weapons. Those abandoned fallout shelters were on my mind on Wednesday night as I watched Russia overturn decades of seemingly settled international policy with an invasion of Ukraine that was as premeditated as it was shocking.

These spaces were eventually meant to be equipped with essentials like water and medical kits designed to last two weeks, by which time it was hoped that the worst of the radioactivity would have dispersed and survivors could emerge to whatever was left.īut most of the equipment was never moved into place, and by the early 1970s funding for the program had dried up, leaving little more than the signs as a reminder of a period when the threat of nuclear holocaust was real enough to prepare for - however futile those preparations would have been. Kennedy’s effort during the height of the Cold War to identify structures that could plausibly provide some protection from the radioactive fallout of a nuclear strike. Such signs used to adorn tens of thousands of buildings around the US, a legacy of President John F.

Just visible near the stairs leading to the basement is a sign, faded with age, of three yellow triangles against a black circle, poised above two words: “fallout shelter.” As I walk my 4-year-old son to day care each morning, we often pass by one of Brooklyn’s many old apartment buildings.

Closest fallout shelter Brooklyn