Voices from the Tunnel
Deep under Manhattan, life goes on
September/October 1995
Terry Williams, Grand Street
An estimated 5,000 people live beneath the streets of Manhattan in a labyrinthian system of abandoned railway tunnels. For four years author Terry Williams studied one pocket of this mysterious population, revealing a terrifying, yet strangely tranquil world. Part anthropological study, part political statement, the journal he produced paints a clear-eyed portrait of urban flight by society's most dispossessed members.
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Journal entry (April 1989)
Each venture into the tunnel brings about the same feelings: As soon as I hit the stairs and start down into the darkness, I feel that I am entering something dangerous. I suppress this anxiety, fear, and hesitation partly because I am getting to know the people there, and partly because I know that I am writing this. Even when the tunnel residents become my friends, the fear is still present every time I go down. I realize now that the fear is not of the tunnel per se, but of something inside me. Entering the tunnel evokes a primal state in my being. My antennae are suddenly alive. I am acutely aware of all that is around me: the rats underfoot, the rocks falling, the strangers who might jump out of the darkness at any time. There are points of sheer darkness where I can't see my handsóa momentary derangement of the senses far removed from what I felt five minutes ago as I walked through Riverside Park. That's when I develop this notion that the tunnel is the unconscious mind of the city.
Early research plan
The environments in which I hope to conduct research include tunnel spaces where the homeless sleep, eat, and/or stake out a claim. I will investigate three research sites: the 168th Street subway tunnel, under Grand Central Station, and 72nd Street to 125th Street below Riverside Park. I intend to map out territory behaviorally, to interview tunnel residents and photograph their dwellings, cardboard homes, rafter homes accessible only by ladder, and burrowed homes under train platforms. Over the past four months I have established ties with seven tunnel residents, one church, two police precincts, and several social welfare agencies serving the tunnel areas of West 72nd Street and Grand Central Station.
Field notes: First descent into Grand Central (April 1991)
We began around noon making our way down into the many levels at Grand Central Station. We put on those orange train reflector vests that the engineers and workers wear and started walking toward the tracks. It is clear that one needs to wear the things because there are many trains moving in all directions. I crossed 21 third-rail electrified tracks during the two-hour tour and many times felt totally bewildered by the sheer complexity of the mazelike structure. We encountered the loop of circular tracks where trains can turn without having to back up. We moved down from the second level, and about 25 feet above the tracks there was an extended bridgelike structure, a grate of some sort just hanging there with newspaper, magazines, and cardboard covering it. The sergeant calls it a 'nest.'
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