Chateau Brooklyn

Q. I've heard that the anchorages on either side of the Brooklyn Bridge contain a series of underground chambers that were for many years used as wine cellars. Is this true?

A. It's true, though the vaults haven't been used as wine cellars for years.

Strictly speaking, the anchorages are the 60,000-ton granite structures located where the cables that support the bridge are fastened to anchor plates and buried in the ground. The wine cellars were located beneath the ramps that lead up to the anchorages, within the arched granite and limestone approaches that span the intervening streets, and that today are all but lost in the maze of exits and entrances. These approaches are perforated by thick masonry vaults running perpendicular to the roadway above.

The vaults -- some of which are more than 50 feet tall -- are notable not only for their inky darkness but also for their consistently cool temperatures, said to hover around a cavelike 60 degrees.

After the bridge was completed in 1883, some chambers were rented for commercial use to help pay off the enormous debt. City records for 1901, for instance, show that the ''Luyties Brothers'' paid $5,000 for wine storage in a vault on the Manhattan side. ''A. Smith & Company'' paid $500 a year from 1901 until 1909 for a vault on the Brooklyn side.