The virus had me within its grips. The week long struggle had placed me in a painfully immobile state, wasting away the afternoons and evenings snoozing in bed, doped up on a confused mix of painkillers and steroids. There's not enough meds in the world though to cure that third-rail itch though, and a journalist in town from Australia was itching for some action... so there was only one thing to do.
You might be surprised to learn that most NYC subway tunnels are devoid of rats. The rats, you see, only live around the station platforms - because that is where the food is. Deeper into the tunnels, where few humans go and less carry their lunches, there's no food to live off of. That is, unless a homeless person has been present.
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When globetrotting takes me to the corporate HQ in Atlanta, it means a week being stuffed in a 5-star resort without a car. They send a limo to pick us up in the morning and return us in the afternoon. The only excitement is when a meeting ends with somebody getting fired. All-you-can-eat gourmet food helps make our stay to be more bearable, but hey, you have to get out once in a while.
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Exploring the interior of one of NYC's best maintained, longest standing abandoned buildings, the New York Architectural Terra Cotta factory office.
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The winfield is one of the largest stretches of 'abandoned' tunnel within the NYC subway system today, in a legion with the
Harlem section of the Second Ave Subway, and
The Suicide Tunnel. What sets the winfield apart though is that it was completed with a rare station shell that was tiled and prepped for use (all other station shells of this variety were never tiled or completed to full size - Think
Underbelly). The only thing missing from this station and tunnel is a set of tracks and a destination for those tracks. The subway line is meant to serve was never actually built - leading the tunnel to an unceremonious dead end. Much of the station area today has been completely rebuilt to accommodate offices and crew locker rooms. The remaining section of the platform is now 'scunts lair', a dark place piled with miscellaneous electronic junk.
Freedom Tunnel. The name is immediately recognizable to anyone with even a baseline knowledge of NYC's exploring and graffiti culture. Many have visited this tunnel. Some have painted here, while others lived it in. Many have casually passed through, and some have tried to exploit it for selfish PR. Few are those that truly formed a relationship with this forsaken place, and the stories of those who have all vary wildly, while maintaining a generally dark thread.
Mine is no different. I first stumbled upon freedom tunnel in 1990. I was immediately drawn in. Over the years just about every possible flavor of life event has taken place here. I've wandered freedom tunnel alone and in groups. I've been paid to lead clandestine tours through it. I've painted freedom tunnel and observed others as they put up masterfully illegal artistic productions. I've taken everyone down here - from significant others to a Japanese news crew. I ran into cops here, who became much more friendly when the girl I was with pulled out her badge. Girl cops are fucking nuts. I've talked to many of the homeless that used to live down here, except that guy who would ride through on his bike and say nothing. And that dead guy. Oh and the guy with the knife, who quickly realized there was nothing to be gained from trying to be a threat - though he didn't have much to loose either.
I've seen the homeless shanty town. I was there when they evicted the homeless, again and again. I was there when they sent in the heavy machinery to destroy the concrete bunkers and old control tower. I was there when Trump's high rises began to rise just to the south of the tunnel, and his security goons hilariously tried to stop me from entering or taking photos. I threatened to arrest one of them. It was pretty funny.
When Amtrak tried to secure freedom tunnel, I thwarted their efforts. When they sealed it up again, I made my own entrance.
I've spent hours at a time in this place. To see it after dark is a trip into the darkest recesses of not only NYC, but your own twisted mind. Alone in the dark, there is no one to hear your screams - or so you'd think. Down here, back then, the walls had eyes and the mole people could practically see in the dark.
I've been down here during the best of times and the worst of times. When my man Byle wanted to bring 30 college students from the infamous west side dorm into the tunnel in the middle of the night for a 'party', I happily lead the way. The dorm, by the way, was just a bunch of rooms rented in one of NYC's last SROs. The people in that building were perhaps just as desperate as the residents of the tunnel at the time. I've drank, partyed and painted here. I've lived here, for in this abyss you feel alive.
I've been down here on the darkest of days. There was a day a few years back that for awhile I thought of as the worst day of my life. Unemployed, with one OCD girl wanting to control my every action and another stalking me, spreading lies about me to anyone stupid enough to listen. It was to a point where I wanted to see her car on my block so I could walk up to it and shoot her in the fucking head for still trying to ruin my life - months after I stopped speaking to her. The restraining order and contacts at the DA's office might have even kept me out of jail. Who knows. Part of me wishes I got to find out. The other part just doesn't give a fuck.
It all seemed like one huge trap with no way out. The economy just fell in the toilet in the toilet so work prospects were not going to be easy and these neurotic women were aces at disruption and drama.
I made my way to the tunnel to be alone. Away from the all the insanity and instability surrounding me. I tried to make sense of it all - talking aloud at nothing but the walls, filled with anger hate and disappointment. I considered the merits of a quick unhonorable death. But in those dark hours I came to see it all with the new clarity. Yes, bad decisions had lead me to that day, and into a dark tunnel alone. Yes, those choices were all mine. But yes, also were the decisions being made - right then and there - to cast away all the toxic clutter clouding my judgement. To throw out all of these people and their dramas. Change the phone number, stop taking to any potential lying sack of shit enablers out there. Fuck, change whole address and move so no one could fucking find me. To make an honest go at my career finally. I sat at the top of a wall for what must have been hours sorting through the mental debris of a life gone off the rails. As the hours passed so too did the feeling of wanting to be done with this shit life once and for all. The trains went by, but none of them had my name on them. I knew I had a viable plan, and that this was indeed the bottom. The darkest of places I could ever end up. Perhaps that would scare many people - but to me it was comfortable. Familiar. Perhaps too familiar.
What seemed like a dead end just hours ago became of world of true possibility. It was a clean slate.
The scant few people that had some idea how close to the edge I was on that day, who called or wrote or whatever - are some of the only people I actually trust anymore.
The years that have followed have been the best of my rather miserable life. I walked out of freedom tunnel that day a free man. My second lease on life began that day. I know it sounds ridiculously cliche, but it's true. I'm healthier, earning a load more money, and in love with the soulmate I never would have found if I never touched bottom and stared at the darkness that day.
For me and many others, This is the essence of freedom tunnel. A place to escape to, and a place to hopefully emerge from. For some it took years, perhaps decades. Others never emerged and all. Some went to jail, others moved on, cleaned up. The homeless are gone now. The money Amtrak recently threw away painting some of the walls destroying some priceless art was a waste. All it did was create a new canvas that is already being painted with fresh graffiti from a newer generation of writers. The tourists still pass through, the bombers still tag up, and the photo geeks still get in. No amount of fencing can contain this place, for this is no ordinary tunnel.
This is Freedom Tunnel.
During an all night subway tunnel exploring spree we came up for air where one tunnel ducks into another. Parallel to this tunnel is a curiousity I've always wondered about: Why is the right of way wide enough for 5 tracks when there are only 2 in use?
Was there a second tunnel at this location that has been sealed up for decades?
The puzzling evidence suggests there may indeed have been one, though the stark reality is that if it exists, it's sealed up tight.
9th Ave's Lower Level is a location festering with filth and decay. Situated at the edge of the MTA's largest staging yards for work trains, this station has been abandoned for almost as many years as I've been alive. It last saw use as the terminal for the old culver shuttle, though it also hosted freight trains - making it significantly more rarified than your average abandoned NYC subway station.
Today it sits as it has since being closed: dark, dirty, and worm out from lack of care. Work trains pass through and lay up at this station all the time, though no one has stopped to maintain it in years.
In an age where people love to say 'Photos or it didn't happen', it's just plain awesome to leave the big camera gear at home and pocket your point and pray at the most.
These photos are from one our last looting expeditions to a recently closed area manufacture who went bankrupt, dumping a campus worth of industrial buildings behind. The most valuable contents of these buildings were sold off at auction - or so many believed. As it turns out, the buyers at said vulture capitalism-fest were out for high grade manufacturing items. They left behind entire rooms full of awesome.
Here are some seriously crappy photos snapped as we made our way through the buildings tossing room after room full of loot in search for cash prizes that are infinitely more valuable than a bunch of boring UE photos.
