Second Ave. Sagas

Video of the Day: Undercity explorations

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

UNDERCITY from Andrew Wonder on Vimeo.

The last few months have been kind to underground explorers who poke around in areas off limits to the city’s law-abiding citizens. After the Underbelly Project drew headlines and arrests, urban exploration has become the next great Internet fetish.

This past week, The Times and NPR profiled Steve Duncan of Undercity who, along with Andrew Wonder and Erling Kagge, took some reporters to a few of the city’s more hard-to-reach spots. Among those were, of course, some areas of the subway. In the video above, the explorers go underground with a camera, and the 30-minute clip is stunning. The first part has them walking the tracks late at night to reach the old abandoned City Hall stop, and the video footage will leave your jaw on the floor.

Of course, what the three explorers and the reporters did is illegal. So do not try that on your end. Cops will be watching these tunnels. For more, check out the articles in The Times and on NPR.org.

Comments

8 responses to “Video of the Day: Undercity explorations”

  1. Jerrold

    I was surprised by the place whose exploration was described in the Times articles.
    SEWERS?
    I mean, old subway tunnels OK, but sewers?

    Reply
  2. Internet Knot-See

    Dot ORG!

    Reply
  3. ant6n

    It seems that West Side Line is really underutilized. From the footage it looks like it could accomodate 4 or 6 tracks. Even without extra tracks it looks like it could possibly allow some of the commuter lines going North West to go along there and cross the Hudson later, possibly freeing some Hudson Tunnel capacity.

    Reply
    1. Joe Steindam

      Metro-North has floated plans in the past to run Hudson Line trains down this way to reach Penn Station, including some stops along the way. The difficulty with such schemes is the congestion at Penn Station. I don’t think the West Side Line is a real alternative to using the Hudson tubes to reach New Jersey, there’s currently nowhere else to cross until you get to Albany.

      Reply
      1. Brandon

        I dont know what LIRRs plans are for East Side Access, but if a majority of their customers want to go to Grand Central, there will be plenty of capacity for Metro North to come to Penn.

        Reply
      2. ant6n

        Well, there’s always the George Washington bridge 😉
        But seriously, Penn Station mostly has capacity issues because of the way it’s set up and operated; there should be enough capacity i.e. if through-routing was used, and more accesses would be added to some platforms.

        Reply
  4. jj

    Love this , so exciting

    Reply
  5. R. Graham

    Jaw dropping is an understatement!

    Reply

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