Adventure: Rochester Subway

Sparky had business up in Rochester NY back in the summer and with free time up there to kill, he asked me to join and maybe stumble into an urban adventure or two. Mind you, I really like Rochester;  there's some really cool old-school architecture in an urban area atop a pretty big waterfall. So I was in. This time, Sparky led the charge and I was just the sidekick along for the ride. And what a ride as Sparky came across a pretty sweet find.

Rochester is a city typical of those in the Great Lakes Region: after decades of sprawling manufacturing dominance, its been devastated and practically abandoned after economic collapse.That means the city has to scale back in those tough times. In the case of Rochester, their subway transit was scrapped when there wasn't even a high enough population to justify it any more. And though the cars and rails are long since gone, the tunnels are still very much in place... if you know where to look.

And so it set. Urban caverns that traversed the entire underside of a city was the destination. With a little luck in navigation and stealthiness, we would be walking the tunnels of a subway system left to die decades ago, that actually passed through some of the original traces of the Erie Canal. History, adventure, and a little riskiness too... how hard could it be? Find out after the jump!

 Our travels actually started in the small town of Seneca Falls in upstate NY. That's where Sparky had to do his shit or whatever. So that's where I first started goofing off. It was a really old town but there were some cool sights to see.

After a locally attained lunch, we made our way to the ghost town that is Rochester NY woooo 

We found a place to park and casually made our way down the sidewalks in the vicinity of Broad Street to an area where the old Subway trains used to pull out of a station and back above ground. It's still opened up here, so we could sneak in. Sure did take awhile until no one was looking though. Seriously, do people in Rochester have nothing to do but watch two guys that are looking over a fence?

 

We made our way into the tunnel under that overhang pretty fucking quick. We were immediately immersed in relative darkness, but were able to realize we had walked right into what was left of an old subway station It also happened to be like an apartment complex for homeless people. Even though none of them were there, you could tell where they each slept. Creepy but cool.

 

From the station we headed over to a big flooded area. There was some good natural light here as there were arched portals letting water escape back to the Genesee River just outside. This is leftover from the old Erie Canal, which actually passed under part of the city at one time before being bypassed around it entirely. We walked over the remains of some catwalks to get some great views of the watery tunnel as well as some really unique looks of the city above us just out the portals. Get there.

 

 

In the picture of the outside world you can see the Broad Street Aqueduct. The top level connects the city across the river for motorists. The bottom level actually used to be filled with water for barges to pass through the canal before being drained for subway use. And thats exactly where the tunnels took us.

 

After crossing over (under?) the bridge we continued into the abyss, rejoining rails and ties as we walked. We were truly under the city at this point, so it got darker and darker and darker. And darkness has this funny way of making pictures not turn out well. Bleh. Here's the few that I got to actually turn out.

 

We had been hearing all kinds of noises from the city streets above the whole time. But suddenly in the darkness we heard something that wasn't a part of that ambiance. It was someone running.... long years of track sure ingrained that sound in my mind. We both agreed to head back out the way we came... and on our way some pretty ghetto looking thug ran right past us through the tunnels. Thank god he just kep going.

That was enough for me though. We got out of there in quite a fucking hurry after that.

Tally-ho!

-Crash