Subterranean New York City relates to the area beneath the surface level of New York City; the natural features, man-made structures, spaces, objects, and cultural creation and experience. Like other subterranea, the underground world of New York City has been the basis of TV series, documentaries, artwork, and books.
Streams, springs and swamps were once a more prominent feature in New York City (NYC). Manhattan for instance has numerous tidally-affected streams that run beneath street level, their existence sub-surface due to development. An example is the Minetta Brook which exists beneath Minetta Lane in Greenwich Village. Water seepage is a problem in the underground spaces of NYC and pumping is necessary to divert it elsewhere. [1] [2] The predominant bedrock underneath NYC is Manhattan Schist. [3]
Some subterranean spaces of New York city are inhabited by so-called Mole people. [4] They were the subject of a 2008 documentary called Voices in the Tunnels.
Municipal services continued to develop and NYC has an extensive sewerage system, steam lines, water channels and other utility systems; and a vast and sometimes deep network of underground space and passages. The workers who excavate this realm are called 'sandhogs' and their origin as an organized group goes back to 8 May 1872. [5] Relics of the past exist beneath the surface, and engineering services have claimed to unearth the likes of old trolley tracks that exist beneath the tarmac and the pneumatic systems of the United States Treasury Department and United States Post Office; the latter of which went into service in 1872 for mail transport. [6] [7]
The underground world of New York City has been the subject of TV series, films, paintings and books. In the popular fictional TV series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the sewer system was the turtles' home and their means of navigating swiftly underneath the sprawling city above. Books involving the topic include The Underland Chronicles, Downsiders, Visages Immobiles and the Marvel comic series Morlocks.
As an artistic subject, the NYC Subway was painted by Mark Rothko in his 'subway series', with expression of the architectural elements and space, in contrast to the scenes depicted in the book Manhattan Transfer by Don Passo which detail the hustle and bustle of people. [8] Graffiti artists have used NYC's sub-terranea and associated objects as the canvas itself, painting and writing on subways and trains. NYC in the 1970s and 1980s is regularly considered the height of subway art. [9]
The abandoned Cobble Hill railroad tunnel was the subject of a segment on an episode of the U.S History Channel's Cities of the Underworld.
In the late 1990s, following on from an article about the subject, the National Geographic created a feature on their website where users could digitally explore elements of subterranean NYC. [10]
Subterranean London refers to a number of subterranean structures that lie beneath London. The city has been occupied by humans for two millennia. Over time, the capital has acquired a vast number of these structures and spaces, often as a result of war and conflict.
A subterranean river is a river or watercourse that runs wholly or partly beneath the ground, one where the riverbed does not represent the surface of the Earth. It is distinct from an aquifer, which may flow like a river but is contained within a permeable layer of rock or other unconsolidated materials. A river flowing below ground level in an open gorge is not classed as subterranean.
An underground city is a series of linked subterranean spaces that may provide a defensive refuge; a place for living, working or shopping; a transit system; mausolea; wine or storage cellars; cisterns or drainage channels; or several of these. Underground cities may be currently active modern creations or they may be historic including ancient sites, some of which may be all or partially open to the public.
In the United States, the term mole people is sometimes used to describe homeless people living under large cities in abandoned subway, railroad, flood, sewage tunnels, and heating shafts.
C.H.U.D. is a 1984 American science fiction horror film directed by Douglas Cheek, produced by Andrew Bonime, and starring John Heard, Daniel Stern, and Christopher Curry in his film debut. The plot concerns a New York City police officer and a homeless shelter manager who team up to investigate a series of disappearances, and discover that the missing people have been killed by humanoid monsters that live in the sewers.
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system that serves four of the five boroughs of New York City, New York: the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Its operator is the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), which is controlled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York. In 2016, an average of 5.66 million passengers used the system daily, making it the busiest rapid transit system in the United States and the seventh busiest in the world.
The IND 63rd Street Line and BMT 63rd Street Line, also referred to as the 63rd Street Crosstown, Crosstown Route, or Route 131-A, are two rapid transit lines of the B Division of the New York City Subway system. The two lines run under 63rd Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, with a cross-platform interchange at the Lexington Avenue–63rd Street station.
The Beach Pneumatic Transit was the first attempt to build an underground public transit system in New York City. It was developed by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869 as a demonstration subway line running on pneumatic power. The line had one stop in the basement of the Rogers Peet Building, near the old City Hall station, and a one-car shuttle running between the building and a dead end approximately 300 feet (91 m) away. It was not a regular mode of transportation and lasted from 1870 until 1873.
Subterranean fiction is a subgenre of adventure fiction, science fiction, or fantasy which focuses on fictional underground settings, sometimes at the center of the Earth or otherwise deep below the surface. The genre is based on, and has in turn influenced, the Hollow Earth theory. The earliest works in the genre were Enlightenment-era philosophical or allegorical works, in which the underground setting was often largely incidental. In the late 19th century, however, more pseudoscientific or proto-science-fictional motifs gained prevalence. Common themes have included a depiction of the underground world as more primitive than the surface, either culturally, technologically or biologically, or in some combination thereof. The former cases usually see the setting used as a venue for sword-and-sorcery fiction, while the latter often features cryptids or creatures extinct on the surface, such as dinosaurs or archaic humans. A less frequent theme has the underground world much more technologically advanced than the surface one, typically either as the refugium of a lost civilization, or as a secret base for space aliens.
A sewer alligator is an alligator that lives in sewers. These accounts are mostly fictional and are rare to encounter. Stories date back to the late 1920s and early 1930s; in most instances they are part of contemporary legend. These myths are based upon reports of alligator sightings in rather unorthodox locations, in particular New York City.
The Central Park North–110th Street station is a station on the IRT Lenox Avenue Line of the New York City Subway, located at the intersection of 110th Street and Lenox Avenue at the southern edge of Harlem, Manhattan. It is served by the 2 and 3 trains at all times.
Zoo York is a style and social philosophy inspired by the New York City graffiti art subculture of the 1970s. Its name originates from a subway tunnel running underneath the area of the Central Park Zoo. This tunnel, called the Zoo York Tunnel, or simply "Zoo York," was a haunt of very early "old school" graffiti writers who hung out with the hippies around the Central Park Bandshell in the late 1960s and 1970s.
References to the New York City Subway in popular culture are prevalent, as it is a common element in many New Yorkers' lives.
Chris Pape is an American painter and graffiti artist. He started tagging subway tunnels and subway cars in 1974 as "Gen II" before adopting the tag "Freedom". Pape is best known for his numerous paintings in the eponymous Freedom Tunnel, an Amtrak tunnel running underneath Manhattan's Riverside Park. Prominent paintings in the Freedom Tunnel attributed to Pape include his "self-portrait", featuring a male torso with a spray-can head, and "There's No Way Like the American Way", a parody of Coca-Cola advertising and tribute to the evicted homeless of the tunnel. Another theme of Freedom's work is black and silver recreations of classical art, including a reinterpretation of the Venus de Milo and a full train car recreation of the iconic hands from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Chris Pape also was one of the first documentarians to cover the mole people, homeless living underground in the Freedom Tunnel.
Life Underground (2001) is a permanent public artwork created by American sculptor Tom Otterness for the New York City Subway's 14th Street/Eighth Avenue station, which serves the A, C, E, and L trains. It was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Arts for Transit program for US$200,000, one percent of the station's renovation budget. This program has commissioned permanent works of art for public transportation facilities the MTA owns and operates. This work is one of the most popular artworks in the subway system.
Minetta Creek was one of the largest natural watercourses in Manhattan, New York City, United States. Minetta Creek was fed from two tributaries, one originating at Fifth Avenue and 21st Street, and the other originating at Sixth Avenue and 16th Street. They joined near Fifth Avenue and 11th Street then took a southwesterly course. Minetta Creek's name is thought to have originated from either the Native American term "Manette", meaning "Devil's Water", or the Dutch word "Minnetje", meaning "the little one".
Tunnel People is an anthropological-journalistic account describing an underground homeless community in New York City. It is written by war photographer and anthropologist Teun Voeten and was initially published in his native Dutch in 1996, and a revised English version was published by the Oakland-based independent publishing house PM Press in 2010.
Subterranean warfare or underground warfare is warfare conducted underneath the ground surface. It is predominantly conducted in tunnels and underground cavities, both natural and artificial.
Underground construction refers to the construction of underground tunnels, shafts, chambers, and passageways, it is also sometimes used to describe the portion of traditional construction that takes place below grade.
In fiction, mole people are stock characters who spend their lives underground, often posing a real or potential threat to those who live on the surface.