CommenTATE

And here’s your proof. (Photo by Mike Tate)

Ah, underground tunnels. A hidden mystique of the Ivy League.

Talk to the right people at Penn and you’ll hear the stories of them.

Actually, probably not. Why does no one talk about tunnels?

We know Columbia has an extensive tunnel system. While Columbia’s tunnels are public knowledge now, other Ivies’ tunnels aren’t.

They’re mysterious at Princeton (is this a map?). Less documented at Yale. And only hinted at Dartmouth.

But it’s not just the Ivy League with tunnels - tons of colleges sport them. from MIT to UCLA.The University of Chicago to the University of Texas. Someone even posted an entire collection of university tunnel maps on Flickr.

Most were built in the early history of universities as steam and utility tunnels and are now explorable. Universities discovered that “using tunnels to pump heat to all the buildings on campus from one central underground boiler was a much cheaper option than putting separate boilers in each building.”

Does Penn have a tunnel system that the right social circles know?

Convinced that we do, I tried to find out.

A few days before this semester started I headed to the university archive. I searched for hours through stacks of paper categorized for College Hall. Only one item caught my eye. It’s dated 2-21-29 (or is it 1921? –see image) and titled “College Hall Contains Four Hidden Staircases.” No mention of publication. Nonetheless, it’s tangible.

What’s interesting are the descriptions of the hidden staircases and how they are “built into the walls” but one “lead[s] to the second floor from the basement while the other two go between the basement and the first floor.” These could lead to tunnels–steam tunnels below College Hall? A few sentences talk of tunnels. It states that a huge tunnel runs under College Hall and “is large enough to permit a wagon to be driven its full length” but is “now sealed tightly.”

So if we had any, some are sealed. But, I hear more exist–and I would know. Happy tunneling!

CommenTATE appears every Monday and Friday.