The Freedom Tunnel is the name given to the railroad tunnel on the

West Side Line The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is used by Amtrak passenger service heading north via ...

under Riverside Park in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Used by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

trains to and from

Pennsylvania Station Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated Penn Station) is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. Several are still in active use by Amtrak and other transportation services; others have been ...

, it got its name because the

graffiti artist Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

Chris "Freedom" Pape used the tunnel walls to create some of his most notable artwork. The name may also be a reference to the former shantytowns built within the tunnel by homeless populations seeking shelter and

freedom Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving on ...

to live rent-free and unsupervised by law enforcement. The tunnel runs approximately , from 72nd Street to 124th Street.

History

The tunnel was built by

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...

in the 1930s to expand park space for

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

residents – although the construction of Moses's

Henry Hudson Parkway The Henry Hudson Parkway is a parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is in Manhattan at 72nd Street, where the parkway continues south as the West Side Highway. It is often erroneously referred to as the West Side Highway throughout it ...

in the same area effectively blocked access to the river. After it was completed, the tunnel was used for freight trains until 1980, when regular operations ended. The railroad favored using yards in the Bronx and New Jersey, and increased use of trucking led to the demise of the

. The giant, man-made caverns became a haven for

homeless Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are: * living on the streets, also kn ...

people. At its height in 1994, nearly a hundred people lived in the tunnel. Freedom Tunnel Shanty

On April 4, 1991, the tunnel was reopened for trains of the Amtrak

Empire Connection The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is used by Amtrak passenger service heading north via ...

, and a massive eviction followed. The shantytowns were bulldozed and the tunnel was chained off. To this day, however, graffiti artists and

urban explorers Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inter ...

continue to visit the tunnel, while the homeless population has been mostly displaced. Around 2014 and 2015, graffiti artists and urban explorers were sporadically caught and escorted out by

Amtrak Police The Amtrak Police Department (APD) is a quasi-federal railroad police department and the law enforcement agency of Amtrak (also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation), the government-owned passenger train system in the United Sta ...

Artwork

Over the tunnel's years of disuse, its isolated nature allowed graffiti artists and street artists to work without fear of arrest, leading to larger and more ambitious pieces. The tunnel has unique lighting provided by grates in the sidewalks of Riverside Park above the space. The descending shafts of light allow

graffiti art Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...

to be seen in the gloom, and artists would often center their projects under the light to take advantage of the spot-lighting effect, as if in a gallery. After achieving popularity in the book ''Spraycan art'' by James Prigoff and Henry Chalfant, graffiti artists began to flock to the Freedom Tunnel and gained access through a series of broken gates near 103rd Street and Riverside Park. Early artists who left their mark on the tunnel included Smith and his brother Sane (who died in 1991), Ghost, Twist, Dan Plasma, Cost, and Revs. Until the construction of the Trump Riverside development, the south end of the tunnel terminated in a large open area. In the 1980s and 1990s, a

tent city A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures. State governments or military organizations set up tent cities to house evacuees, refugees, or soldiers. UNICEF's Supply Division supplies expandable ten ...

with pirated electricity and hundreds, perhaps thousands of dwellers existed in the south end of the tunnel. Retired trains were also permanently parked near the south end of the tunnel allowing artists to cover whole cars with paint and murals, even if the cars themselves never left the tunnels. However, the homeless population was gradually relocated from the tunnel to other places. "Freedom" dedicated one of the tunnel's murals to the former homeless population there. Freedom Tunnel

Works by "Freedom" remained mostly untouched and respected by taggers. A notable exception was the recreation of

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and ...

's '' The Third of May'', which was defaced, but subsequently restored by Freedom. In addition, there are numerous other murals on the walls in the 90- and 100-block areas of the tunnel; including a

chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...

style study of the ''

Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' (; el, Αφροδίτη της Μήλου, Afrodíti tis Mílou) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period, sometime between 150 and 125 BC. It is one of the most famous works of ancient ...

'', and original portraits rendered with

impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

splashes of color. The centerpiece of the tunnel is a mural painted in the style of a comic book that tells an abstract story that seems to reference the relationship of the former residents of the tunnel, the city government, and the police. Other historical pieces range from

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...

. Beginning in late 2009, Amtrak began to aggressively repaint the tunnels in an effort to restore their original appearance. Nearly all of the tunnel's interior walls south of 91st Street were repainted, resulting in many murals disappearing, including the centerpiece mural by Freedom and Smith commemorating the former residents of the tunnel. For unknown reasons, Amtrak did not finish repainting the tunnel walls north of 91st Street. Today, all of the walls that were repainted have been covered by new layers of graffiti. Around 2010, the ''Third of May'' mural suffered major water damage due to a leak in the tunnel directly above.

Documentaries and books

The Freedom Tunnel and the homeless people that were living there in the mid-1990s are mentioned in numerous book and documentaries; some of the notable ones include: *

Jennifer Toth Jennifer Ninel Toth (born ) is an English-born journalist and writer. Early life and education Toth was born in London to John and Paula Toth. Her father was a national security correspondent for the ''Los Angeles Times'' and later a senior as ...

documents the homeless residents in her book ''The Mole People'' (1993). * Photographer

Margaret Morton Margaret Morton MBE (born 29 January 1968) is a Scottish curler and Olympic champion. She received a gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City

made the photo book ''The Tunnel'' (1995). *

Marc Singer Marc Singer (born January 29, 1948) is a Canadian-born American actor best known for his roles in the '' Beastmaster'' film series, as Mike Donovan in the original 1980s TV series '' V'', and as Matt Cantrell in ''Dallas''. Early life Singer wa ...

made the documentary '' Dark Days'' (2000) about the tunnel, using footage shot in the mid-1990s. Singer's later visit to the tunnel in 2011 is included in the film's 10th anniversary DVD release. * Anthropologist and journalist

Teun Voeten Teun Voeten (born 25 October 1961) is a Dutch photojournalist and cultural anthropologist specializing in war and conflicts. In 1996 he published the book '' Tunnelmensen'' about homeless people living in an old railroad tunnel in Manhattan. He al ...

wrote the very detailed ''

Tunnel People ''Tunnel People'' (Dutch title: ''Tunnelmensen'') 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 publi ...

'' (2010). * Explorer and writer Moses Gates describes his multiple encounters with other urban explorers and homeless people including one who resided in the tunnel for over thirty years in his book ''Hidden Cities'' (2013).

References

External links

* {{NYC Bridge Amtrak tunnels Culture of New York City Former squats Graffiti in the United States Homelessness in the United States Railroad tunnels in New York City Riverside Park (Manhattan) Shanty towns in the United States Squatting in the United States Subterranea of the United States Tunnels in Manhattan Upper West Side Urban exploration West Side Line Housing in New York City

History

Artwork

Documentaries and books

See also

References

External links