“I knew you were rubble when you walked in.”
This is Waterside Plaza in Manhattan, and it is quite literally a chunk of England.
But... how?
Google Maps / Via google.co.uk
Tom Scott, TV Presenter and explainer of things you might not know, has the answer.
Spoiler: Turns out part of Manhattan is built out of bits of England – Bristol to be exact – and there's a world war to thank for it.
As Tom explains: “In WWII, American supply ships went to Bristol, found that it was almost completely bombed out, and, well, they needed something to weigh them down on their way back across the Atlantic.”
"So they literally took the rubble, the stone, the brick of bombed-out Bristol, loaded it onto their ships, took it back (to New York), and then just dumped it in the East River."
“This development here, and for a few streets either way, is literally built on the rubble of Bristol.”
Thanks, Tom!
