A sixty-nine-foot solid-granite obelisk stands on a small terrace in New York City’s Central Park, just west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It is popularly known as “Cleopatra’s Needle,” even though it was built around 1450 BCE, more than a thousand years before the Egyptian queen was born. It’s the oldest outdoor monument in New York City.
It was transported to New York in 1880 as a gift to the people of the United States from the government of Egypt. Tourists have been marveling at its design and mysterious inscriptions ever since.
The monument rests on a heavy-duty roller bearing. Push hard to rotate the obelisk on its giant stone base. It is very heavy, however, so it may take more than one person to get it going.
Once it starts to move, turn the Needle three complete rotations in both directions. A section of the base on the north side will unlock. Push inward and you will find an opening. There is a ladder on the far wall. It is seventy-nine feet down to the start of a narrow railway tunnel.
A slingshot trolley waits to launch you under Manhattan. Depending on how the secret switch under the Hess triangle has been set, you will zoom to the west, east, or south.