Beneath the Streets

Book excerpt: Only a handful of transit workers, daring explorers and graffiti writers have experienced the full scope of the New York subway system. Beneath The Streets reveals this world for the first time with fantastic photographs captured from throughout the tunnels and byways of the subway. Although it provides service to over 5 million riders every day, the subway is for most a sealed system. Very few of its patrons are aware of the extent of this vast underground infrastructure. The authors of this important historical work first discovered this hidden world in the process of photographing graffiti found below ground in the subway system. Now their riveting documentary work opens up this subterranean maze, including 600 miles of active track as well as abandoned sections and disused stations, for all to experience.