money pit

Definitions

1. 1

   A possession or financial commitment, especially a building or vehicle, that creates…

   A possession or financial commitment, especially a building or vehicle, that creates substantial ongoing expenses, especially one whose costs are considered to be unsustainable.

   • [T]he district does not want to hold on to the nearly 50-year old^([sic]) school for very much longer, as it has outlived its usefulness and has become a money pit.
   • Critics lambasted the building's design, the art collection and Mr. Hartford, whose gallery became a money pit. Within a year he was nosing around for a partner or buyer.
   • Close to two decades past deadline and now carrying a projected $100 billion price tag, it has not returned a lick of good science — nor is it likely to.
2. 2

   A complicated, seemingly man-made excavation on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada,…

   A complicated, seemingly man-made excavation on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, rumored to contain pirate treasure and which has been repeatedly and unsuccessfully probed at great expense.

   • In 1896 . . . work was again started with two engines and steam pumps, with the intention of pumping out the "money pit".
   • They sank twenty shafts in a ring round the central money pit, and drove tunnels endlessly in the hope of intercepting the underground channel and so draining the treasure shaft.
   • Edward Reichert, a New Yorker, was planning "a gigantic project" . . . to move in power excavation equipment to seek the storied "money pit".

The neighborhood