The Freedom Tunnel is a railroad tunnel carrying the

West Side Line The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is currently used by Amtrak passenger service heading n ...

under Riverside Park in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, New York City. Used by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

trains to and from

Pennsylvania Station Pennsylvania Station or Penn Station may refer to: Current train stations * Baltimore Penn Station * New York Penn Station ** Pennsylvania Station (1910–1963), the predecessor to the present New York City station * Newark Penn Station Trai ...

, it got its name because the

graffiti artist Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in Graffito (archaeology), graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple writte ...

Chris "Freedom" Pape used the tunnel walls to create some of his most notable artwork. The name may also be a reference to the former

shantytowns A shanty town, squatter area, squatter settlement, or squatter camp is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood, or from cheap building materials such as corrugated iron sh ...

built within the tunnel by

homeless Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...

populations seeking shelter and

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

to live rent-free and unsupervised by law enforcement. The tunnel runs approximately , from 72nd Street to 124th Street.

History

The tunnel was built by

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influentia ...

in the 1930s to expand park space for

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...

residents – although the construction of Moses's

Henry Hudson Parkway The Henry Hudson Parkway is a controlled-access highway, controlled-access Parkways in New York, parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is in Manhattan at 72nd Street (Manhattan), 72nd Street, where the parkway continues south as the We ...

in the same area effectively blocked access to the river. The tunnel's south portal originally opened into the 60th Street Yard. However, when the yard was redeveloped into Riverside South in the late 1990s and 2000s, the tracks south of the tunnel were also covered. After it was completed, the tunnel was used for freight trains until 1980, when regular operations ended. The railroad favored using yards in the Bronx and New Jersey, and increased use of trucking led to the demise of the

. The giant, man-made caverns became a haven for

people. At its height in 1994, nearly a hundred people lived in the tunnel. Freedom Tunnel Shanty

On April 4, 1991, the tunnel was reopened for trains of the Amtrak

Empire Connection The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is currently used by Amtrak passenger service heading n ...

, and a massive eviction followed. The

shantytown A shanty town, squatter area, squatter settlement, or squatter camp is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood, or from cheap building materials such as corrugated iron s ...

s were bulldozed and the tunnel was chained off. To this day, however, graffiti artists and

urban explorers Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex, and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inte ...

continue to visit the tunnel, while the homeless population has been mostly displaced. Around 2014 and 2015, graffiti artists and urban explorers were sporadically caught and escorted out by

Amtrak Police The Amtrak Police Department (APD) is a federal railroad police department of Amtrak (also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation), the government-owned passenger train system in the United States. It is headquartered at Union Sta ...

Artwork

Over the tunnel's years of disuse, its isolated nature allowed graffiti artists and street artists to work without fear of arrest, leading to larger and more ambitious pieces. The tunnel has unique lighting provided by grates in the sidewalks of Riverside Park above the space. The descending shafts of light allow

graffiti art Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

to be seen in the gloom, and artists would often center their projects under the light to take advantage of the spot-lighting effect as if in a gallery. After achieving popularity in the book ''

Spraycan Art ''Spraycan Art'' is the first book that documented the initial stages of the worldwide spread of New York City Subway graffiti style and subculture. Authored by Henry Chalfant and James Prigoff and published by Thames & Hudson on September 1, 1 ...

'' by

James Prigoff James Prigoff (October 29, 1927 – April 21, 2021) was an American photographer, author, and lecturer focusing on public murals, graffiti, and spraycan art. He has traveled extensively throughout the world documenting these art forms. Early ...

and

Henry Chalfant Henry Chalfant (born January 2, 1940) is an American photographer and videographer most notable for his work on graffiti, breakdance, and hip hop culture. One of Chalfant's prints is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in N ...

, graffiti artists began to flock to the Freedom Tunnel and gained access through a series of broken gates near 103rd Street and Riverside Park. Early artists who left their mark on the tunnel included the duo

Sane Smith Sane and Smith were the names used by a New York graffiti duo, composed of David Smith ("Sane") and his brother Roger Smith ("Smith"), active during the 1980s. About Sane Smith were among the most persistent Writers in New York during the 1980 ...

, Ghost, Twist, Dan Plasma,

Cost Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it i ...

, and Revs. Until the construction of the Trump Riverside development, the south end of the tunnel terminated in a large open area. In the 1980s and 1990s, a

tent city A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures. State governments or military organizations set up tent cities to house evacuees, refugees, or soldiers. UNICEF's Supply Division supplies expandable te ...

with pirated electricity and hundreds, perhaps thousands of dwellers existed in the south end of the tunnel. Retired trains were also permanently parked near the south end of the tunnel allowing artists to cover whole cars with paint and murals, even if the cars themselves never left the tunnels. However, the homeless population was gradually relocated from the tunnel to other places. "Freedom" dedicated one of the tunnel's murals to the former homeless population there. Freedom Tunnel

Works by "Freedom" remained mostly untouched and respected by taggers. A notable exception was the recreation of

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...

's '' The Third of May'', which was defaced, but subsequently restored by Freedom. In addition, there are numerous other murals on the walls in the 90- and 100-block areas of the tunnel; including a

chiaroscuro In art, chiaroscuro ( , ; ) is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to ach ...

style study of the ''

Venus de Milo The ''Venus de Milo'' or ''Aphrodite of Melos'' is an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek marble sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic art, Hellenistic period. Its exact dating is uncertain, but the modern consensus places it in the 2nd ...

'', and original portraits rendered with

impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

splashes of color. The centerpiece of the tunnel is a mural painted in the style of a comic book that tells an abstract story that seems to reference the relationship of the former residents of the tunnel, the city government, and the police. Other historical pieces range from

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...

. Beginning in late 2009, Amtrak began to aggressively repaint the tunnels in an effort to restore their original appearance. Nearly all of the tunnel's interior walls south of 91st Street were repainted, resulting in many murals disappearing, including the centerpiece mural by Freedom and Smith commemorating the former residents of the tunnel. For unknown reasons, Amtrak did not finish repainting the tunnel walls north of 91st Street. Today, all of the walls that were repainted have been covered by new layers of graffiti. Around 2010, the ''Third of May'' mural suffered major water damage due to a leak in the tunnel directly above.

Documentaries and books

The Freedom Tunnel and the homeless people that were living there in the mid-1990s are mentioned in numerous book and documentaries; some of the notable ones include: *

Jennifer Toth Jennifer Ninel Toth (August 15, 1967 – April 12, 2025) was an American journalist and writer. She was known for her published studies of homeless people and orphans. Early life and education Toth was born in London on August 15, 1967, to Amer ...

documents the homeless residents in her book ''The Mole People'' (1993). * Photographer Margaret Morton made the photo book ''The Tunnel'' (1995). * New York City urban exploration researcher Joseph Brennan provided detailed criticism of Toth's claims in his 1996 online article, ''Fantasy in The Mole People'', published on his website dedicated to abandoned New York City underground stations and tunnels. Brennan's article points to a large number of inaccuracies, as well as outright inventions and embellishments in Toth's book, that seem to be aiming for heavily sensationalizing the topic of her book. *

Marc Singer Marc Singer (born January 29, 1948) is a Canadian-American actor best known for his roles in the '' Beastmaster'' film series, as Mike Donovan in the original 1980s TV series '' V'', and as Matt Cantrell in ''Dallas''. Early life Singer was born ...

made the documentary '' Dark Days'' (2000) about the tunnel, using footage shot in the mid-1990s. Singer's later visit to the tunnel in 2011 is included in the film's 10th anniversary DVD release. * Anthropologist and journalist

Teun Voeten Teun Voeten is a Dutch photojournalist and cultural anthropologist specializing in war and conflicts. In 1996 he published the book '' Tunnelmensen'' about homeless people living in an old railroad tunnel in Manhattan. He also wrote books on the ...

wrote the very detailed ''

Tunnel People ''Tunnel People'' (Dutch title: ''Tunnelmensen'') is an anthropological-journalistic account describing an underground homeless community in New York City. It is written by war photographer and anthropologist Teun Voeten and was initially publis ...

'' (2010). * Explorer and writer Moses Gates describes his multiple encounters with other urban explorers and homeless people including one who resided in the tunnel for over thirty years in his book ''Hidden Cities'' (2013).

References

Sources

External links