Contributed by Andy Hoffer, 2004

Imagine if you discovered a manhole that leads to a mysterious underground chamber… A series of ladders and landings descending down as far as your eye can see, deep beneath New York City's streets. Well, I get to see that type of thing every day, as a guy who gets paid to work at these locations like this for a living… and I am never bored of it.

Millions of miles of copper and fiber optic cable run under the streets of New York City, as part of one of the largest networks in the world. The conduit system we use is mostly just below the surface, between 10 and 15 feet below ground.

As an underground lineman for a telecommunications company, it is the responsibility of the crew I work with to place these vital cables beneath the streets of the city.

Cables are run between manholes via pre-placed ducts or conduits. When these conduits are filled to capacity, the general procedure is to attempt to remove a little used or obsolete cable, and replace it with a higher capacity or fiber optic cable.

Every so often, however, there is a body of water that needs to be crossed. The most common method of crossing a river is the utilization of a prefabricated conduit system, buried directly into the riverbed. However, the costs for constructing such a system are quite expensive.

When greater conduit capacity is required at a water crossing, occasionally an alternate method must be used. Once a very long river crossing is constructed, you cannot replace the cables within it, due to the splices that are made during the time of it being buried.

One such alternate method to route the cable is by utilizing existing infrastructure. I have fortunately been assigned to a project where "communications meets transportation." You see, the MTA subway system in NYC also is aware of this problem.. and they have provided a solution in the past to accommodate this type of crossing.

Imbedded in the subway system tunnel walls, through river crossings, the MTA has provided banks of ducts that can be used for telecommunications cables. They are rented at a relatively high price-- but in some cases, it's cheaper than the new construction of an independent river crossing system.

In several locations of the city, though very unusual, there are sections of NYC subway tunnels that are over 150 feet below the surface. These are mainly beneath bodies of water. Naturally, the subway system's almost standard method of "cut and cover" cannot be used to cross a river… so they used a tunnel boring method, through the bedrock (similar to water tunnel construction) at depths below one hundred feet.

A side effect of this method is that the subway station entrances must be located rather far away from the water's edge in each direction, so that the tunnel can gradually make it's way closer to the surface (people don't like going up and down too many stairs to get on the trains and you can't have too steep of a grade for the trains).

Being that "our' job is to just cross the river with the cable.. running the cable the entire distance to the next subway station at very high 'per foot' rental rates is not feasible.
The solution to this, engineers found, was to create a permanent vertical shaft very close to the water's edge, on both sides, which allows the telecommunication system to drop straight down, and meet the transportation system.

It is through this shaft, with its series of steel ladders and landings, descending straight down into the city's bedrock, that I have been recently working on a project involving replacement of several of the existing cables.

While most of my co-workers on this team aren't nearly as enthusiastic as I am about it, it is quite a change from what we are normally accustomed to. Climbing up and down stairs and ladders the equivalent height of a fifteen story building (heavily laden with equipment and tools), multiple times during a work shift, doesn't usually make too much room for pleasantries between workers.

The one thing that takes my mind off the physical labor of the job, is the fact that I, in my spare time, am an "urban explorer" and what I am getting to see with my own eyes, is a very remote, and seldom-seen part of the city. This, being as close to "urban spelunkering" as you can get, is something that does not come without hazards. Safety precautions must be taken: protective clothing, reflectorization, and lighting are required during this operation.

As we descend down into this dark man-made orifice, I can feel the temperature and air pressure change. I get a sense of overwhelming awe, as we get closer and closer to where this shaft meets the tunnel. Running down the wall of this shaft, adjacent to the ladders, is the set of large copper cables that we will be working on. Our job, on this particular day, will end directly in the very bottom room, where the cables enter the wall, and into the duct banks embedded in the tunnel lining.

However, I had to know what the future held for us, for the other segment of our job, to come in the following weeks.

Sliding open a large, rusty iron door, on the opposite wall of this chamber, I find myself smack right in the middle of two gleaming sets of subway tracks. A single incandescent light bulb dimly illuminates this particular spot. However, I can't help but to seriously wonder whose job it is to change it, whenever it burns out.

I use the moment to take in the temporary solitude, and isolation of this location. The thing I notice the most, in this portion of the subway system, is the lack of any kind of graffiti or litter. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that I wasn't in New York City.

Why is this particular spot so pristine, you ask? Well, as I mentioned before, it is an unusually long distance between the two nearest stations at either end of the tunnel… which would be a vandal's only means of entry and exit to this remote spot. With very little side clearance in these tunnel tubes, when a train is present, you wouldn't be able to make it to the station quickly enough, without getting out of harm's way, even if you were a very fast runner. The frequency that the trains travel through here is rather unpredictable, and is often no greater than just a couple of minutes.

The other factor is that graf artists typically want their "tags" to be seen, and one thing is for sure: aside from the occasional worker, there isn't much of an audience to make the journey worthwhile.

Just as I stand there, pondering this… I suddenly feel an increase in air pressure, a very peculiar feeling if you're not accustomed to it. Immediately following that change is an incredibly powerful wind, blowing out stronger and stronger by the second, from one of the tunnel tubes. The wind where I am standing becomes so strong, in such a short period of time, that I find myself instinctively hunching over and grabbing hold of the doorway from which I just came.

Just then, with an almost deafening roar, a train barrels past, momentarily creating a sense of chaos in this formerly tranquil environ. Because of the unusually long distance between the two stations which I am located, conductors frequently throttle-up, and race through here at speeds seldom seen in other portions of the system.

After the train has passed, the experience isn't over yet. Much like a giant piston, in its tight-fitting cylinder, you can feel the suction trailing behind the train as it disappears from view.
Tranquility is now restored as quickly as it was lost… and I reflect back on that sensation, with awe, and an incredible new respect for the power of these modern-day iron horses.

Now it's back to work.

Many thanks to Andy Hoffer for contributing this story. His photography can be found at www.hogger.com