TC

Character

Transcript

1:01:18 –

1:01:24

1:01:37 –

1:02:15

Jennifer Toth

I found that there were people down there who wanted to escape from society.

What got me interested in the story was I was a graduate student a Columbia NY. And I was tutoring a girl, she would tell me stories about her life cause she was such an interesting kid and she would tell these great stories about what she did in school and finally she said, you know, there are these mole people under ground and they have ashen colored skin and glowing red eyes and webbed feet. I said Kristen, Tell the truth. And she said No! There really are people that live underground there are really people living in the tunnels and that’s how I got started. She was right!

1:02:18 –

1:02:44

Erik

I got started in this project because primarily, when I was a kid, I was always fascinated by things like The Loch Ness monster and UFO’s and crop circles, and when the opportunity came for me to actually work on this project, I grabbed it. The mole people, is a myth that I could try to prove or disprove.

1:02:47 –

1:03:19

Kenny

My first impression was not so much the fear of the tunnels but actually the fear of police in the tunnel because it obviously something that’s illegal. So there was a lot of trepidation and just getting on the tracks and going into the tunnels and I went with Erik and he told me to let him know by making a sound or a signal in case someone was coming on the platform or was interested in what I was doing- what we were doing.

1:03:18 –

Erik

You know, what really worries me is that there is no catwalk.

1:03:22 –

Kenny

No catwalk

1:03:23 –

1:03:35

Erik

There no catwalk and even though we are going at a time that there are almost no trains going around, there still no where to go if a train does come around. So, it does worry me a little bit

1:03:36 –

Kenny

So what are our options?

1:03:37 –

1:04:05 –

1:04:35

1:04:50 –

1:05:05

Erik

ERIK

Our options are just to be careful.

It’s kind of like archeological traversing. You know? I now know how the guys that discovered the pyramids felt. The dark tunnels, the arches, the torchlight. I think there’s a train right there. Yes it is, so let’s cross over and let it go by.

I was scared, I was exhilarated, but we went down a few times. Uh, two or three times not really venturing too far off the path. It’s a different experience down there. You feel fears you never knew existed.

1:05:32 –

1:05:44

Kenny

All these passages and tunnels, its like you couldn’t make one from another. That’s when I started wondering whether getting back to the surface would be a problem.

1:05:58 –

1:06:24 –

1:06:36

Erik

Kenny, be careful please.

Hey, this was Freedom Smith. Bernard and Chris Pape used to come down here and do art and they were all taggers and artists. And this is one of the pieces, that he left down here in the tunnels.  This is beautiful!

1:06:43–

1:06:58

Kenny

As we got further in to the tunnel, you could hear what sounds like a drum, sounds like a double beat and you wouldn’t hear it behind us from where the platform was, and you would hear it further into the tunnel.

1:06:58 –

1:07:16

Erik

And we felt like we were being seen, we felt like we were being watched those other times and we heard a lot of tapping, and drumming. Stuff that we’ve learned is kind of how people communicate to let people know that there is someone in the tunnel that shouldn’t be in the tunnel.

1:07:19 –

1:07:24

Kenny

And then I noticed, from behind, there was somebody else getting on the track.

1:07:25 –

1:07:28

Erik

Okay, we’re going to step over the third rail here so be careful.

1:08:06 –

1:08:35

Kenny

The entire time that we were following him I was somewhat in the distance in the back. What’s going through his mind, what he may have been thinking about before we met him. My whole thought was about being ambushed in some sort of tunnel and even if some of us or all of us would be able to escape, not finding our way back out. I was afraid the entire time.

1:08:35 –

1:08:38

James

Okay, kill that light, kill that light.

1:09:00 –

1:09:08

Erik

He ended up taking us to a place, we finally stopped, and he said he didn’t want to be on camera, but that we could talk to him.

1:09:08 –

1:09:41

James

I’ve been out here for a few years now. And I found this place through other people and… I did 16 years in jail, straight up, 16 years you know and I wanna be free.   And this place is concealed, you’ll get killed down here, and you will be here for a  long time before they find you. You’ll be dead and stinking, before they’ll find you, man.  You’ll probably be a skeleton. I do what I need to survive out here.

1:09:41 –

1:09:57

Erik

We talked to James for a little while until he ended the interview. He said he had to go and he’d get us at least to where we could make it back to the platform, and we made a time for him to meet and to be honest, I didn’t think he’d be here the second time.

1:09:58 –

1:10:15

James

You know, we got a lot of intelligent people out here man. You got motherfuckers that got 8-9 years of college, degrees, you got people that got massive degrees out here man, and you’d be amazed how fucking intelligent some of these people are out here man. And you ask yourself why they out here man. Why they out here? A woman drive a motherfucker crazy man.

1:10:15 –

1:10:16

Kenny

Downhere?

1:10:16 –

1:10:34

James

Yeah, you got people that was in love man, and they probably left them. And they just fucking flipped man. They start their smoking and they just gave up on life man. Life don’t mean shit to them no more. Life don’t mean a motherfucking thing to them no more.

1:10:36 –

1:11:01

Erik

James has become our best guy. He’s taken us to tunnels and tracks that are not active anymore. He’s taken us to various places, down in the tunnels that haven’t seen even an M.T.A. worker in 10-15-20 years. He took us to the arteries and through the stairs that connect the tunnels down underneath.

1:11:02 –

1:11:14

James

I see light., okay,…Uphere,  this is the door that you go outside.

1:11:13 –

1:11:15

Erik

Where does this come out?

1:11:15 –

1:11:29

James

That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I know two spots. We either go out through a screen or we go out to a park. Or we go out on Stanton street.

1:11:30 –

1:11:32

Erik

Is this kinda your emergency exit, or is this the one you use all the time.

1:11:32 –

1:11:41

James

You know I told you it’s just a screen man. I’ve never been this high up.

1:11:45 –

1:12:31

Jennifer

In the 70’s, in the 1970’s, there were a lot of people in the tunnels shooting up drugs and mostly just looking for a place to escape. People hiding out from the law. Then the 80’s was the decade of crack and homelessness and that’s when people started really going down into the tunnels and living there, making homes. Homes with microwaves set up and shower systems that they used from the sprinkler system and finding bathrooms that were no longer in use but had actual running water. There are 99 bathrooms in the subways of NY and only 10 are open to the public so the rest of them have running water and they’re buried in the tunnels.

1:12:46–

1:13:12

Kenny

Bertrum, Betrum was like a shell of a person. He expressed no interest in living above ground. I don’t know if he was on anything at the time that we interviewed him, but he didn’t seem to operate too well, mentally and emotionally.

1:13:25 –

1:14:24

Bertrum

I’ve been down here for about 15 years. More than 15 years. I used to live all the way down there on 116th st. next to a watchtower overthere. I used to have nice place there, I used to go to the men’s shelter. And then after I suddenly associated myself with some of the guys who live in this tunnel. Who live in this place. I sort of got out of there, moved down there. Moving to Bernard’s place.   And started, you know, over there I used to talk to him and, first time I got high on crack, I was, like, with him. And the guy, you know,  sort of, gave me a drink, and he gave me a hit, incentives . And I sort of understood where I was living for a while and it worked on my mind for a while and, well I’m what you call a crack head.

1:14:24 –

1:14:25

KENNY

Burtrum, somebody’s here.

1:14:43 –

1:14:46

Bertrum

Somebody’s here? Yo! Tony, is that you? Alright, that’s Tony.

1:14:46 –

1:14:48

1:14:48 –

1:15:27

Erik

Bertrum:

You’ve known him for a long time?

Yea, we became very close when, when they closed that hole up over there. And we used to get in here to get in there. And he came up here to live. And he came climbing up here with some kind of bag of cans and I said oh shit. I couldn’t get in, and I couldn’t get out. So I decided, you know, to find some kind of way to release the pressure, the burden, you know what I mean? And I started digging that hole until really early in the morning, until about 2 o’ clock. I finished that hole. A lot of work. I did.

1:15:33–

1:15:50

James

You know, we had somebody living down here one time. Somebody lived down here once before, down in here, but then they cleared it out. They caught a couple more spots down here.

1:15:50 –

1:15:52

Erik

It’s just a sleeping place.

1:15:52–

1:16:00

James

A sleeping place, yea. A safe place here, it feels safe. Where aint no one gonna be bothered. They will bring their water down here.

1:16:00 –

1:16:03 

Erik

There are some pillows

1:16:03  –

1:17:31

James

Like I said man, I could write a fucking book on me being down here man. When I first decided to come down here, this place would never be this dirty. But other people come down here and open… you never open your doors to these motherfuckers down here man, cause they come with their filth, you know, and they start to leave their shit all dirty and he will bring somebody else, and then you gotta go find another fucking place cause it aint yours no more. We’re all out here together man, you don’t tell a motherfucker to get the fuck out of here, they’re tired man, maybe they’ve been running around smoking all night, you know, you be tired. It’s just that when you do that, I won’t fuck with them blankets. I’m the cleanest motherfucken person there is. I’m telling you man, I am man, I’m like kinda dirty right now man, but before I ran into you, I was gonna go back to my storage and change my clothes. I take good care of myself. My health means a hell of a lot to me. I got mad ass cosmetics. I got every fucking thing I need. I’ve got enough shit to last me for years. Hell, I got about 15-20 fucking coats. That’s just the track man. That’s just the track. You understand what I’m saying. That’s Angie. That you baby? Okay you don’t want to be on the camera right?

1:17:34

1:18:05

Jennifer Toth

It’s very dangerous for women down there, but it can also be very vicious particularly for a woman down there alone, she’s thought to be fair game, and often times can be pimped out for money or used in exchange for drugs or something like that. So almost all of the women had a man. Either a protector, or a pimp, or a husband, or a boyfriend.

1:18:05 –

1:18:22

Kenny