The Tunnel: The Underground Homeless of New York City (Architecture of Despair)

One of the oldest surviving homeless communities in New York City has been hidden from public view in an underground train tunnel for more than twenty years. Residents dwell in continual darkness along the two-and-one-half-mile stretch, which is penetrated only by shafts of light angling through air vents. The residents who have been there longest live alongside the tracks in cinder-block bunkers originally used by railroad personnel. Other residents are hidden high above the tracks in recessed niches that are accessible only by a precarious climb. More recent tunnel dwellers have built freestanding structures in the dark alcoves of the tunnel or perched themselves on concrete ledges.
This book, the first in a planned three-volume series documenting the lives and living spaces of New York City's homeless population, is narrated entirely by the tunnel residents. The Architecture of Despair series will combine Margaret Morton's photographs with excerpts from six years of audiotaped oral histories to create a unique archive of extraordinary individuals living in an extraordinary social, political, and economic condition.