...shouldn't they interrogate Neal Stephenson, or even better, Goto Dengo?
And North Korea flaunting its nuclear power just now... aahh, the plot thickens...

Of course its set in London, and its not really "cyberpunk" or whatever, but its a great book and Neil did write the endorsement on the PATTERN RECOGNITION (all caps with apologies to WG--I am too young to remember mimeographing) dust cover. Just wanted to recommend this book if you haven't read it.

Cool news story though.

Do you catch the secret trains on track pi or e?

I bet it's just like the party subway from those Smirnof Ice commercials, only a little more crowded. Herds of party goers being pressed into the party cars by porters in white gloves. Saki and whiskey flowing like, well, like complimentary drinks in the bar car.

And I thought mass transit was great already. I love driving my car, but let's face it: if I had a party subway to ride, with all of the most exclusive people, drinking, dancing, and music, I'd never drive again.

Party on, Tokyo.

Sorry, the Cui Ya is tweaking my data and here comes Idea No. 443:

...... a FIELD TRIP to Tokyo for the express purpose of making contact with the secret underground city as reported in The Japan Times (WG blog, 3-4-03).

Accompanied by Shun Akiba, our tour will take us on a whirlwind excursion through Tokyo's maze of subway tunnels, using the latest maps available from www.tokyometro.go.jp, as well as official construction records pertaining to the creation of said subway tunnels.

Following Mr. Akiba's lead, the group will traipse down damp, unmarked tunnels, shining halogen flashlights on the myriad discoveries waiting to be made, all in the name of science and adventure!

A small digital-video crew will tag the group, documenting the event in hopes of breaking "the footage", once the underground city is located (assuming it exists, keeping Geraldo in mind). In any event, a fascinating 90 minute DVD will evolve from the jaunt, all proceeds going to Mr. Akiba (who apparently needs the cash a.s.a.p., despite his son's comments to the contrary).

Each member is responsible for airfare, lodging, sake, rubber boots, flashlights, hard hats, and respirators. Members should sign a Waiver of Liability in the event of accidents occurring beneath Tokyo, and/or illnesses resulting from inhalation of mysterious and unidentifiable spores, mites, fungi, or other toxins (see: respirators above).

An extended trip can be arranged for those wishing to visit a Zen temple for the purposes of answering koans, or obtaining enlightenment. Additional cost to be determined.

Shun Akiba's apophenia quote of the day: "Why am I ignored? Can I be on to something, and there is a conspiracy to silence me? I believe so."

Indeed.

...... brain wave interlude; caffeine fibrillation.........

Imagine the weirdness. Would Cayce turn this down?

I saw a documentary about homeless people that lived in tunnels underground in Chicago a few years ago--wish I could remember the title of it. LOST *something*, I think. There is also a book by a female journalist about people living underground, I think in New York. I may have the cities reversed.

Obviously not a very helpful post, but if anyone remembers these, I'd appreciate it if you'd post the titles or author/director. I'd like to look them up again.

Also, if anyone's interested, "Living underground in tunnels" is a very interesting google. (Although it doesn't turn up either of the above documents--I already tried it).

It was New York and it was called "Dark Days" by Marc Singer - an EXCELLENT documentary.

from the Internet Movie Database

quote:

---

Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice. What are their options? The Coalition for the Homeless helps negotiate a light-filled solution.

---

"How grand this illusion, in all its hurt and joy. What magnificent detail."

quote:

---

I bet it's just like the party subway from those Smirnof Ice commercials, only a little more crowded. Herds of party goers being pressed into the party cars by porters in white gloves. Saki and whiskey flowing like, well, like complimentary drinks in the bar car.

And I thought mass transit was great already. I love driving my car, but let's face it: if I had a party subway to ride, with all of the most exclusive people, drinking, dancing, and music, I'd never drive again.

Party on, Tokyo.

---

Minus the trains...something like this happens in the tunnels underneath Paris. Tons of illegal parties and dwellings lie underneath the city.

I would love to find out more about this stuff.

"How grand this illusion, in all its hurt and joy. What magnificent detail."

Amazing how "Dark Days" keeps popping up like that in this forum. It's pretty much my favorite documentary out there, and I was fortunate to catch a screening where the director, Marc Singer, did a Q&A afterwards. At that time he said he was just getting used to using a pillow again.

---------------------------
I am addicted to

If you liked "Dark Days," you will like this book:


Its called "Mole People: Living under the streets of New York city" by Jennifer Toth.

Hope my image link worked.

Apophenia.

Someone I know had just done a huge slog of research on Dark Days and Mole People and whatnot for a project they were working on.

I had a link to a website which details how to enter the secret and abandoned Underground stations in London but cannot find it after migrating to a new machine. Anyone know what I speak of?

For that matter, has anyone ever stood at the Picadilly Circus tube station and, avoiding the crowds, ducked into the gap about halfway down the platform on the Picadilly line wherein lies soot black stairs ever downward into a cold breeze?

I recall hearing that the Aliens tour ride that used to be in the basement of the Trocadero was haunted and Dan Akroyd sent some little boy and an old lady to exorcise it.

Nice place to stand in summertime rush.

I don't know about you, but once I had read through that story on Tokyo, I was unconvinced there was actually any mystery at all, perhaps just a suspicious mind on the part of the journalist. There must be at least a dozen mundane explanations for the so-called "mystery" (incorrect maps, access ways locked to the public and so on...) We have nothing to trust except the word of the author. Maybe it was just in the translation.

Abandon all HOPE

Duh. The power of Google (tm).


Click here for secret Tube stations in London.

That's it. Funny site you found there, however.

There are a lot of links about exploring the urban underground here;

http://www.deathrock.net/ariadne/ruins.html


You know, the underground spaces of cities are interesting because they are the most obvious component of "The Hidden City".

Like the rooftops, they are always there and seldom noticed.

While the modern city is in a constant state of flux, the Underground seems to contain the memory of the city.

There are crypts, and catacoombs, sewers a century old.

The underground is not only they forgotten space, it is the space of the forgotten, where people who are forgotten go, where people go so they may become forgotten.

And in that grand science fictional sense, it is an interzone, where laws do not hold and reality is maleable.

Each great city (Rome, London, Moscow, New York) has its own underground, but in a metaphorical way, they are linked by a hidden highway of the unconcious.

Oops, blathering again.

later

jaydee

jaydee -

Blather on. Excellent link. Now I must figure out how not to waste my time by going through everything there. Ta.

I recall a JG Ballard short story -- (The Concentration City? in THE DISASTER AREA collection?) where we journey back to the foundation brick on the underground. From the late 60s.

Cities, like other physical things, accrete layers. There are lots of legends here in DC about underground passages between and under the government buildings. Can't get to them now without getting shot by Homeland Security. (Try not to be a dusky foreigner, fer chrissake!) But even old cities in the US don't have the scope of time to really get the strata built up. Anyone aware if the Big Dig in Boston gave rise to new legends?

For another interesting take on the future role of NYC underground, try AFTER DACHAU, by Daniel Quinn. Not his normal territory -- it reads more like Bradbury -- but interesting.

Are you crazy? Are you high?

...Humberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum delves, among a couple other million themes, into Paris and other european cities' underbellies. Lots of stuff more in that book to lose oneself...

And yes, I suppose these kind of structures are more of an utilitarian than "occult" nature. And surely secrecy is needed for them. For example, there are a couple subway lines here on Mexico City which are >way< deeper into the ground than all others; they happen to be the ones passing near the presidential residence and one of the richest neighborhoods. Nuclear shelter installations? Of course not

[This message was edited by fuldog on March 06, 2003 at 11:17 AM.]

why, thankyou otukuhouse. I have a mild interest in the underworlds of cities, as an aspect of course of the total hidden urban life. Empty lots, back allys, the crumbling abandoned neibourhoods, a freind of mine told me onece that vast tracts of phillidelphia were derelict, but that was back in the eighties.

The city has two faces (to be crudely reductionalist, but perhaps a little poetic)a public one and and a hidden one.

I always like to turn that quiet corner and peek at the private face.

jaydee

I joined just so that I could mention (vis a vis the 3/4/03-ish post) that there has been Japanese subway fiction for fifteen years or so. Almost got it right with Underground up there, but that's a nonfiction book, more about terrorism & its victims than about the subway per se. (pretty excellent though.)

Murakami wrote a very strange novel called Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, back in the day. It has mythic and c****p*** elements. Part of it is set in the subways of Tokyo, though more properly it's a complex underworld connected to the subway system, haunted by malevolent human-eating creatures called INKlings. The INKlings always remain slightly offstage. The narrator has an artificial cipher mechanism in his brain. It's cool: those of you who haven't read it might dig it.