It’s a literal hellhole.
A crack opened on a crumbling sidewalk near Battery Park, briefly giving passersby a peek into the subway below — and a startling reminder of how thin the ground above really is.
The baseball-sized gap in the asphalt at Battery Place and State Street appeared sometime last week, according to a hair-raising Instagram video, but has since been blocked off with an orange traffic cone bolted to the pavement.
The video shows light streaming up from the hole, right in the middle of a worn blacktop patch, creating a surreal and unsettling scene.
The hole also runs deep, apparently cutting between a layer of concrete and the ceiling of the Bowling Green subway station, giving curious tourists a rare—and unnerving—vantage point into the station below.
New Yorkers were quick to mock the apparent hazard. One quipped, “At this point human hair is holding the whole city together.”
“I love this city, but it’s a joke how bad the infrastructure is,” wrote another.
The video shows light streaming up from the hole.
Other, more desensitized New Yorkers joked about the scene, with one dubbing it the “special rat express entrance.”
It’s unclear when—or how—the hole formed. A staffer selling “Statue of Liberty Sightseeing” ferry tickets told The Post on Wednesday that the orange cone has been serving as a temporary placeholder since last week.
“The cone has been there for several days now,” the worker, who declined to give their name, explained.
“Since it’s bolted down, it’s not like it blows away or can be moved, so it’s not really bothering any of us,” the worker said.
“I assume they’ll get to it eventually, but as you can see, the whole sidewalk is full of cracks. Maybe they plan on fixing it all at once,” they added, gesturing to the well-worn, heavily traveled pavement.
Responsibility for the hole falls to the Parks Department, which was made aware of the issue earlier this week.
The department is treating it as a “high priority” and is currently evaluating the best approach for repairs.
