Comments on: Places Not On Your Freshman Orientation Tour

By: "Jessica"

"Jessica" — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:19:06 +0000

I go to College of the Ozarks, and we have an extensive network of tunnels connecting most of the buildings on campus. Students aren’t supposed to go in them unless they’re doing work on them, of course, but they’re not difficult to access – I can think of several places on campus where doors aren’t locked/are supposed to be locked but aren’t generally. You can see where they’re at whenever it snows, they’re warmer so they melt faster.

By: Megan

Megan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:10:37 +0000

4th floor JQA; UMass represent! Spent a few nights wandering the tunnels with friends and finding ourselves in the strangest/creepiest of places. Now, if we’d only been able to find the tunnel that supposedly led to the Old Chapel, that would’ve been the payday. Always wanted to explore that building..

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:56:41 +0000

Harvard University has steam tunnels that run between some of the older buildings on campus. They average about 100 degrees Fahrenheit inside and patches of melted snow appear on the lawns in the winter where the heat from the tunnels has risen up through the ground. One of the steam tunnels even runs through the Weeks footbridge over the Charles river–above the structural arches but below the walkway. Pretty cool stuff.

Campus legend has it that during the 1960s, when students took over University Hall (the main administration building), faculty used the steam tunnels to get into the building and break up the rebellion. There are also rumors that a German spy used the tunnels to escape from the basement of Wigglesworth Hall, thus evading capture by an FBI agent.

Fascinating stuff. Read on here:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=239089

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=346003

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:31:00 +0000

@Elwood Dowd: Is that really true about Sacramento’s streets? I find that fascinating. Any idea where one might find information about reasons that the former first floors and streets are now underground and were left intact?

By: Wolf

Wolf — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:06:00 +0000

I have two actually. UB – SUNY Buffalo has steam tunnels running all under the South Campus that are very difficult to access. Fortunately, my roomate Mouse was a fantastically talented lock picker and found a way in through the basement of Goodyear Hall. What made these so special was that in some areas the tunnel lowered to only 3 feet high, necessitating a crawl through the mud with red hot steam pipes over head. In my one foray in, I managed to scare the dickens out of a dorm resident doing his laundry by bursting out of an unmarked door covered in mud, demanding to know where I was, then diving back in for good show. Good time, good times.

The second, not very well known at all, exists under one of the dorm buildings on the Medina Annex of Lackland AFB. The building sits atop a natural cavern that is only accessable by removing a metal cover on the floor of a janitors closet. The cavern was pitch black, had a large natural pool in the center, and no visible outlet. Getting back out was neither easy nor pleasant!

By: Munroe

Munroe — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:34:00 +0000

I remember back when I was going to Everett Community College Joey Diamond and I found a desolate stairwell that we dubbed “the old school hip-hop headquarters”. People would come into the lounge where we worked, and we would offer to show them the palace. We would blindfold complete strangers and take them there. Of course we would rap at them as well after reaching the destination.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:25:00 +0000

Ball State University in central Indiana has a tunnel system, although it’s been blocked to students for years. I don’t know of anyone who’s been there. A cooler fact is that a lot of towns where I grew up have tunnels from the days of the Underground Railroad (central Indiana had a lot of Quakers). And of course there are the tunnels that go all over downtown Indianapolis, but they’re nice and carpeted and anyone can get into them, so I’m not sure they count here. :-P

By: tiffany

tiffany — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 22:28:00 +0000

As far as I know, there are no tunnel systems around ASU (certainly not at West campus)… All I could think of while reading this article was an episode of Law and Order. The kids went urban spelunking and I wondered if people actually did that. Guess they do!

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:54:00 +0000

The tunnels at Indiana University have floors that lean hard to the left and the tunnels themselves only turn left. Further and further left they go.

By: andy

andy — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:53:00 +0000

Maggie – depends on when Hanover College was built. E&H was founded in 1836. Wiley Hall had burned down once The current building was constructed in 1929 over the foundation of the original building which was a hospital during the civil war, and has a slew of ghost stories.

We probably have a tunnel system, but everything is still steam heating.