The Elbert County Tribune

TO BE HUMAN ANTHILL
SIX BIG TUNNELS UNDER GOTHAM NEARLY COMPLETED.
Will Open New Life to Residents of Metropolis—Underground World to Have Commerce of Its Own.

New York.—Within a few months New York will be more than ever the human ant-hill, where men will go to and fro, up and down, back and forth, from home to business, business to club, club to theater, never seeing the sun or even the stars except when they emerge temporarily from a wonderful series of subterranean passages. Six big tunnels under the rivers will make the ant-hill almost complete. One of these is open already, though not for passenger traffic. Three more will be ready inside of a few months. Within a year two more will be added, and then the human ants may hurry from place to place in Manhattan, and burrow across to Jersey on one side or over to Brooklyn on the other.

Narrow little Manhattan island cannot stretch sideways or lengthwise. She has already stretched up almost as far as she dares, and now, because she has used up all the other dimensions, she is beginning to make streets and avenues under the ground.

In the early morning the New York ants hurry from their homes and dive like chipmunks into the holes in the ground whose attractive entrances kiosks proclaim them subway stations. The subway goes almost everywhere already, and hundreds of thousands of workers now escape the unpleasant weather—and the sunshine.

The human ants can go a little more quickly, and, they think, a little more comfortably, underground, so all through the 24 hours the hurrying trains drag their burdens back and forth down underneath the streets and the skyscrapers.

Every day a half million passengers ride in the subway. It is a complete underground railway organization, with an army of 5,000 men to operate it. There are ticket agents, porters, motormen, guards, trackmen, switchmen, practically everything that an open-air railroad has, including underground repair shops and storage tracks.

The longest direct ride on the subway is from South Ferry to 230th street, more than 14 miles. Express trains make this in 45 minutes. But for 5 cents one can ride on the subway as long as he likes by using the cross-overs.

This underground railway has its business world. The multitudes who ride have cash, and cash may be spent underground as well as on Broadway. Big hotels have entrances of their own. Department stores connect with subterranean stations. Office buildings do likewise. There are newsstands, flower shops, a drug store and a rathskeller, and near Twenty-third street there is a whole block of underground stores.

But even all this was not enough for the New York ant. He wanted to burrow under the rivers on either side, and he has.

The Hudson & Manhattan Railroad company has driven two steel-bore tunnels under the Hudson, and trains will be running through at least one of them this fall. The down-town terminal will be under the largest office building in the world, now rising at Fulton, Church, Dey and Cortland streets. The train platform will be two stories underground.

There is also to be a branch underground tunnel from Jersey City to Hoboken, one and one-fourth miles, making railroad connections. From Hoboken a two-bore tunnel will dip under the river back to New York, connecting with a new subway following the line of Sixth avenue to the new Pennsylvania terminals.

For several years 4,000 men have been working on the Hudson river tunnels. Probably 20,000 men are working on the Pennsylvania tunnel from New Jersey to Long Island under both the Hudson and East rivers and under the entire width of Manhattan. This tunnel, together with the Pennsylvania's new station, will cost $100,000,000.

Two tunnels connecting New York and Brooklyn are nearly ready for operation, thus extending the Manhattan subway system into the borough of Brooklyn. This is to be opened in about two months.

So that, when all this is finished and it is scarcely more than a matter of months—the New York ants will see less of the sun and stars than ever, but hurry, hurry, hurry, all day and all night, along their subterranean passages for the sake of saving five minutes every day.

Example of Stores In the Manhattan Tunnels.