Old Chicago Freight Tunnel Chicago, IL

Underneath downtown Chicago, 60 miles of abandoned tunnels exist about 40 feet beneath the surface of the city. These tunnels were dug in the first years of the 20th century, and from 1906 until 1959 the Chicago Tunnel Company ran miniature trains in these tunnels to delivery coal, mail, and freight to buildings in the loop, and to remove ash and waste from from the same buildings.

The tunnels, which follow the grid of the streets above, were essentially forgotten for many years. In 1992, workers driving piles into the river near the Kinzie Street Bridge unwittingly pierced of the abandoned tunnels. Water flooded the tunnels and then in turn flooded the basements of buildings in the loop. The disaster was magnified because of ignorance about the tunnels; many people had forgotten their existence, and there was no reliable map of all the tunnels.

Eventually, the water was cleaned up and the connections between the tunnels and most buildings were shut off with concrete plugs. In some cases, water-tight doors were installed. Today, some of the tunnels are used to house telephone cables and fiber-optic lines, as in the photo above.

NYC Subway, Deep Underground Tunnel

Most of New York City's Subways were built in the early 20th century using the "cut-and-cover" method, which involved digging trenches, laying track and supports, and then cover over the exposed trench to make a tunnel. In a few places in the system, however, the subway was far enough underground that it had to be bored as a round tunnel.

In these deepest parts of the system, the tunnels are essentially round in cross-section, as opposed to the rectangular shape seen through most of the subway lines. Such round tunnels can be seen, for example, in all the tunnels where the subway crosses under rivers. The round shape not only facilitated the boring process, but it also allowed the tunnelers to create the tunnel as a series of reinforced ribs which help support the weight of the rock, water, and mud above. 

The picture shows a section of the subway where a line crosses underneath a river. The shape of the tunnel is essentially circular, with a flattened bottom on which the rails are laid. The doorway visible to the upper right in the picture leads to a parallel tunnel for trains going in the opposite direction.

Sawmill River, Underneath Downtown Yonkers
Yonkers, NY

Around 1650, long before Yonkers was established as a city and even before New York became New York, a Dutch landowner named Adriaen van der Donck built a water-powered sawmill on Nepperhan Creek near the Hudson River. That sawmill became the center of a town that was later to become known as Yonkers (incorporated as a village in 1855, and officially recognized as a city in 1872.)

The sawmill that Van der Donck built also gave a new name to Nepperhan Creek, which has been known as the Sawmill River ever since. As Yonkers grew, though, it grew around and over the small river. As more industrial and residential buildings were built in the 19th century, some straddled the river. Sections of it were shunted through underground flumes, and road bridges were built across other parts of it, until eventually the city decided to simply cover over the last exposed sections of the river. By the early 1900s, the river was completely underground for the section that passes through downtown Yonkers.

Storm Drain
Queens, NYC

Titan 1 Missile Silo, Self-Portrait
Denver, CO

The Titan 1 Missiles, armed with nuclear warheads, were the first true inter-continental missiles. The program began in the late 1950s; the first missiles were brought on active duty in 1962, and all the missiles were taken out of service in 1965. (By 1965, the Titan 1 missiles were obsolete, replaced by Titan II missile program.) The Titan 1 missile program actually precipitated the Cuban Missile crisis, bringing the world closer to nuclear holocaust than it has ever been before or since.

The Titan 1 Missile silos were the largest and most complex of all the silos that were built to house intercontinental missiles. All of the silo was at least 60 feet underground, with some sections much deeper. A few have found new usages, but most of the silos remain abandoned as this one is.

New York City Subway, Abandoned 42nd Street Lower-Level Station

 

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