There is good information on the net, since i spent some years in this location, i know it from experience, and won’t rehash what’s already available on the internet.
We’ve all heard of the under dog. Between 1995 and 2001 every fall winter and spring, when there are more hours of darkness, especially at rush hours. I would shoot the North River Tunnels western portals. The attraction to all the tunnels – reverse Freudian, not phallic but vaginal – is that they were in terrible shape but, also, they are the busiest train tunnels in America and responsible in getting all train traffic from the west of New York directly into Manhattan and Penn Station.
The North River Tunnels is actually a segment within a larger book about Jersey infrastructure called Jersey Run, where I seriously shot all the tunnels and cuts through the Palisades and Bergen Hill. Most of what I know of this landscape is from experience and time spent there in pursuit of pictures.
Of all the tunnels I did, the North River Tunnels were the most difficult to achieve my simple goal of clarity, resolution and sharpness which eventually happened.
The Jersey Portals for the North River Tunnels in 1910. When you think of the old Penn Station, parts of which are buried in landfills two mies from here, you understand this connection out in Jersey, beyond the Hudson River, where all direct train traffic out of Manhattan emerges into the Meadowlands, the city miles behind the Palisades and Bergen Hill, and into the big sky and marshes of the Meadowlands, devoid of streets, people and structures that are not industrial.
The portals were built as if they were temples of industry and transportation, and were now covered with overgrown flora, soot, corrosion, decay and generally neglected ninety years after their construction.
Built in 1910, the Jersey portal facades were built like temples of transportation, a common practice of dressing up and selling industrial, utility and transportation infrastructure to the public. Crossing and coming right off the Meadowlands at about sea level, the tunnels permit entrance through Bergen Hill and the Jersey Palisades and under the Hudson River directly into Penn Station.
From the HAER archive in the sixties.
The current North River Tunnels allow a maximum of 24 one-way crossings per hour. Since 2003, the tunnels have operated near capacity during peak hours. Between 1976 and 2010, the number of NJ Transit weekday trains crossing the Hudson using the North River Tunnels increased from 147 to 438.
Trains ordinarily travel west (to New Jersey) through the north tube and east (to Manhattan) through the south. During the busiest hour of morning rush, about 24 trains are scheduled through the south tube, and the same through the north tube in the afternoon.
The tubes run parallel to each other underneath the river. The center of each tube was separated by a distance of 37 feet (11 m). The two tracks fan out to 21 tracks just west of Penn Station.
Opened in 1910, the two single track tunnels are the only direct link into Manhattan for trains converging from the west – Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. Close to 500 trains a day go through the tunnels.
Only two tunnels permit direct access into and out of Manhattan from the west of an east coast city that is America’s largest metro area, whose center is cut off from the mainland, and an island itself that has twenty bridges connecting it to other boroughs and one to New Jersey plus two traffic tunnels?
Anonymous source. 100 years later after its construction the site is overgrown with flora.
By 2000 the facade and approaches were unrecognizable with soot and wildly overgrown fauna. Before 9/11 the portal area was pretty easy to access and there were no cameras, guards or detection systems. However the locomotive engineers would report activity especially near or on the tracks so you would go in at night, wearing dark colors and be vigilant because they would come get you.
We have technology that has surpassed the infrastructure that it is supposed to travel on, and this was true thirty years ago.
Conspiracists rage over Bill Gates putting a computer chip in “his” vaccine that they refuse to get, while freely using the pc with windows and other Microsoft products, along with all their other apps and social media that has been not just tracking them – once you consent to use GPS, it’s done already – but knowing everything about you and selling the information behind your back.
Conspiracists wonder about the G 5 causing the covid 19 virus, even while G 5 service is not up and running yet, blind to the fact that it is the G 5 network that will enable artificial intelligence to open up in full force, eliminating almost half the jobs that exist today.
We are also blind when it comes to our infrastructure, its importance as a driver of the economy, not to mention safety. The condition of these two tunnels, the only direct link into Manhattan from the west, by train, is pitiful for a poor country, but as the portal to Manhattan? That’s why they have finally fixed up LaGuardia, and the Portal Bridge replacement is starting.
Before 9/11 everything was accessible, there were no cameras, full-time guards or detection systems. However the locomotive engineers would report activity especially near or on the tracks so you would go in at night, wearing dark colors and be vigilant.
Since this was shot between 1996 and 2001, the North River Tunnels have become symbols for the need for new infrastructure because of the massive back-ups created by outdated and deteriorating infrastructure and the affects of Hurricane Sandy, as well as, the outdated portal bridge crossing the Hackensack River, three miles to the west, that periodically jams, while it is being opened and closed. Built before the tunnels, It needs a total replacement, and it is finally going to happen after so many years, and that alone will cost two billion dollars, for a two track elevated bridge over a small river.
Time and timing, essential to working in changing real conditions, and as it turned out (predictive moment) there were changes about to occur with these River Tunnels and this landscape after 9/11. For one, it would be inaccessible. Then, beginning with Gov. Christie’s rejection of the federal governments plan to build new tunnels, it’s evolved into a much more serious transportation crisis with its memorable train delays, because, even before Hurricane Sandy, it needed work, but now is worse.
Beyond a Beef
Why was i here or anywhere else during these years, Going Under and shooting? More precisely, what fuels such a long run?
North River Tunnels is a certified Going Under project.
Those are the facts of the landscape and its history, but as any of my Going Under projects, there are dual intentions, one seen, the other privately played out. It’s my performance art of getting what’s real, but also coming home safely. The fuel that supplied the energy to get it done, is the reason i was so adamant about doing something that was, basically, impossible, and pulling it off, and, since this work has never been seen until now, it further proves what i was trying to accomplish without witnesses – accomplish the impossible, consistently returning until i reached this goal.
NORTH RIVER TUNNELS (1996-2001)
The view looking West out into the Meadowlands that the trains traverses. When an eastbound train passes the final turn, from the Meadowlands, due east, it’s a straight shot to Manhattan, and the operator will begin his acceleration which is prettyexhilrating, especially if you’re inside one of the tubes.
“Man is a bridge not an end.”
A tunnel crosses by going under.
Going in at twilight, working under cover of darkness, wearing black clothing and being vigilant saved me from being busted or hit by a train. That didn’t mean they didn’t come after me, a few caught me, one attacked before I could identify myself.
If it’s three in the morning, and you are in a vast landscape of no people but industry and transportation, and you run into an undercover train guard, I guess you could say, anything could happen.
Decay is beautiful if you don’t have to deal with it. Otherwise it’s sublime, and the beauty is that you are living through it. Art and entertainment? My performance is busting ass with a camera, and my art is getting home safe with artifacts.
Six years and a dozen pictures – it wasn’t worth the effort. I could have been doing something else, but it was between 1995 and 2001 and the country was on a fantastic economic run, as tech took off and hyper-gentrification had begun its run and any sobering up would have to wait for 9/11. There was no one where i was and that’s where i wanted to be, where there were very few rules and restrictions, and, i guess, in retrospect, people, at least a certain kind. I had already spent twenty years shooting what the boom economy and gentrification would end. I also never did a single documentary or straight shot, but time exposures and movement. Was i broadening industrial photography, or so-called documentary-based work, or simply making movies with stills and flipping cinema’s day-for-night technique to color industrial-noir, using film to do what it’s not supposed to do. The testing ground was the darkest parts of the urban Tristate, the Meadowlands.
And, like all the books i had been doing, the negs were processed, i checked with a loop for sharpness, and then the negs were put in storage with no proofing or prints, permitting a lot more shooting time. That’s no impact, there’s no showing, being out of sight instead, and shown here for the first time only because of the internet.
The problem was basic – keeping the camera rock steady for one hour exposures at night as multiple trains in America’s busiest tunnels moved, sometimes blasting, in and out of the tunnels loaded with a human cargo of commuters.
After the first year I would build a tripod rig that was secured with 120 pounds of sandbags. Still, even with all that, certain shots seemed destined to blur. I knew that the the way to succeed was only by repeated attempts, in other words – luck. By March, 2001 it was done. Just-in-time, 9/11 was just around the corner, the security in the tri-state, particularly infrastructure, was going to go through the roof.
High-performance blue-collar art, requiring balance, soldiering, athletics, stealth, gear and intuitive awareness to safely capture technically difficult, almost impossible shots with inherent risks. In this case, being hit by a train. That’s my performance, and getting home alive and whole, is the art. Obviously an inversion of the artistic goals of creating, name-building and showing, to simply making, over then over again. And for what?
With the blue-collar world being replaced by service jobs, and the economy stabilizing and going on an historic economic run, along with the beginnings of hyper-gentrification combined with a Final Disgust with the art and entertainment business, I could now concentrate on pure resolution and sharpness – keeping the camera rock steady for one hour exposures at night as multiple trains in America’s busiest tunnels. Sometimes chugging tirelessly, sometimes blasting, in and out of the tunnels loaded with a human cargo of commuters, they never ceased running.
Precision on this level, of unknowns, and shooting continuously with two cameras for nine hours and returning home with less than fifteen shots, often with none usable from blur, was a long haul, but it wasn’t going to end until every shot intended was sharp, no blur.
All done in the night, requiring average exposures of one hour.
A pure pictures quest, where the negative is processed and dropped into the archive, and off to the next pictures mission.
Jersey Run and the tunnels was never a sure bet, but, purely an assured failure, that became an adventure by repeated attempts, finally, and only, giving up, after the shot was accomplished, for some god-known reason. It was the complete opposite of shooting a lot and blindly which i don’t do with film, but digital does so well. Accuracy, might be the tradition of the camera, but I never did precision on this level, though, and shooting continuously with two cameras for nine hours and returning home with less than fifteen shots, often with none usable from blur or movement – the wrong kind, was a long haul, but it wasn’t going to end until every shot intended was sharp, no blur, still, steady and then it comes to its end, as, literally the negative is processed and dropped into the archive.
Gross achievement without witness can prove some things. I suppose the next evolution in this process would be to not put film in the camera and then to finally leave it at home and simply experience things without their representation. The worth of this process, downward into the dumps, tunnels and swamps of Jersey, turning showing inside out, is an experiment and exercise in the truth of things.
I never questioned what or why I was doing this, and when it would end. It was fueled by a deep well of disgust that itself was unending, so I went with a flow, but it was a sensible one, if soul is your objective.
You could call them nothing-to-lose years, but done in the most redeeming and positive way, not by escape, but facing uncomfortable bitter truths, paying the price, but also having an artifact that was never looked at, nut still remains after the fact.
High-performance art, based on actual deeds requiring balance, soldiering, athletics, stealth and strong intuition to capture technically difficult, almost impossible shots with the inherent risks, mainly being hit by a train. That’s the performance, and getting home alive and whole, is the art.
The problem was basic – keeping the camera rock steady for one hour exposures at night as multiple trains in America’s busiest tunnels moved, sometimes blasting, in and out of the tunnels loaded with a human cargo of commuters.
It was never a sure bet, but, purely an assured failure, that became an adventure by repeated attempts, finally, and only, giving up, after the shot was accomplished, for some god-known reason. It was the complete opposite of shooting a lot and blindly which i don’t do. I just never did precision on this level. Shooting continuously with two cameras for nine hours and returning home with less than fifteen shots, often with none usable from blur or not being interesting, was a long haul, but it wasn’t going to end until every shot intended sharp, no blur.
Another pure pictures quest, where the negative is processed and dropped into the archive, nad no prints or proofs are made.
Eventually I would build a tripod rig that was secured with 120 pounds of sandbags. Even with all that, 90% of the shots were destined to blur. I knew that the the way to succeed was only by repeated attempts, in other words – luck. By March, 2001 it was done. Just-in-time, 9/11 was just around the corner, the security in the tri-state, particularly infrastructure, was going to go through the roof.
Since these shots were done between 1996 and 2001, the North River Tunnels have become symbols for the need for new infrastructure because of the massive back-ups created by outdated and deteriorating infrastructure and the affects of Hurricane Sandy, as well as, the outdated portal bridge crossing the Hackensack River, three miles to the west, that periodically jams, while it is being opened and closed. Built well before the tunnels, It needs a total replacement, and that is actually in the works now.
Joined with the objective of capturing the tunnels at night with movement of only the trains’ lights, was to do the impossible shot. The impossible was simply keeping a camera still for 90 minutes, while trains and locomotives sped over it. It was, in other words, for myself, two missions – to capture the tunnels in motion and prove something could be done that was not possibly gonna happen.
And each time every shot had to be guarded, watched, becuse i would cover the camera and lens with back cloth to block the overexposing blinding, outgoing light of locomotives, but also to hide my rigs, but not the lens, from the same very bright light of a locomotive heading into a tunnel.
After the eastbound trains cleared the Portal Bridge, the track, on an embankment three miles long to the North River Tunnels, is basically a straight and fast shot north until it bends east and into the tunnels. When the trains clear that curve it becomes a really straight shot directly into Manhattan’s Penn Station, so when the trains run ove the camera or sweep by it, they are moving fast.
Six years and a dozen pictures. Never did a single documentary shot, only time exposures and movement. The North River Tunnels is actually a segment within a larger book about Jersey infrastructure called Jersey Run, where I seriously shot all the tunnels and cuts through the Palisades as part of a huge look at the Jeresy transportation corridor – planes, trains, cars, trucks and ships – in a land of landfills, waste dumps, energy production, generating stations, t.e.u. yards, scrapyards, prisons and manufacturing, thanks to the geography and geology of the Meadowlands.
Done for two reasons, to do something that was not possible, and to document and experience the infrastructure of the Meadowlands and the Palisades, by participating in a region’s rich infrastructure history. Perhaps the majority of you view screens all day, and can’t imagine so well, reality like this on a daily basis, but it was truly a big job, reliant on perfect timing, that took tons of time, before i could drive away from it knowing the shot was done.
And the overall timing of the project was intuitive but correct, as 9/11 would change so much, and unfettered access to the tristate’s transportation system quickly became the old days.
And, like all the books i had been doing, the negs were processed, i checked with a loop for sharpness, and then the negs were put in storage with no proofing or prints, permitting a lot more shooting time. That’s not dramatic, who would care, there’s no showing, being out of sight instead, and shown here for the first time because the internet came along which permitted no-contact with the art and entertainment industry, while having the possibility of full contact with the public. In other words, unfiltered.
Unlike a bridge a tunnel can support any weight. I was never above the law but below it. Crossing is a going over, but I cross by going under.