Digging Up Dirt in NYC

For these inquisitive urban archaeologists, unearthing eighteenth-century gun locks, deteriorated douches and other ancient oddities is all in a day’s work.

Illustrations by Alexis Frederick-Frost

She reaches into one of the dozens of boxes that line the basement’s walls and pulls out a baggie, then places it gently on a table covered in craft paper.

“This is a gun lock from our digging at Fulton Street,” Alyssa Loorya proudly explains. “The style indicates that it is pre-American Revolution.”

The piece is coated in green crust, a byproduct of oxidation after three centuries of compression beneath layers of dirt and municipal supply lines. I pick it up and feel New York City’s past between my fingers.

“You could grow up in the city where history was made and still miss it all,” Jonathan Lethem once wrote of New York. That statement might be best realized here in this Marine Park, Brooklyn, basement — the headquarters of Chrysalis Archaeological Consultants. The neighborhood's charm lies in the fact that it doesn't feel like the city. The row houses here — connected and not — are more Levittown than Kings County. The snow piles are over four f…