After reading Jennifer Toth's The Mole People
and vaguely knowing the area from my previous trips on Amtrak north
to Rochester, I had a pretty good idea where this hidden tunnel
was. We walked into a trailer lot in plain view of the attendant.
He drove up to us in his golf cart and asked us where we were heading.
"To get some photos of the trains sir" motioning to the
LIRR yard. He warned us that there were cops in there, but I explained
that I didn't intend to enter the yard. He told us that we really
weren't supposed to be down here, but was cool about it and let
us explore. I should buy that guy a Javits Center pretzel or something.
Anyway, proceeding deeper into the trailer lot, we found an area
that must have been a giant homeless community near where Amtrak
dips below grade to enter Penn Station. Filthy. Moving on, we explore
an abandoned New York Central freight platform and yet another hobo
home. Farther north, we locate the tunnel that the graffiti writier
Smith described as "The Pits of Hell". It sure was.
