Reliquary

It can be illustrative to view the various stratum of subterranean New York society in the same way one would view a geologic cross section, or a food chain showing devolvement from predator to prey. Highest on the chain are those who inhabit a twilight world between the underground and the surface; who visit soup kitchens, welfare offices, or even places of employment by day, only to return to the tunnels by night to drink or sleep. Next come the long-term, habitual, or pathologically homeless persons who simply prefer the dark, warm filth of the underground to the sunlit, often freezing filth of the city streets. Below them—often literally—are the multiple substance abusers and criminals who use the subway and railroad tunnels as havens or hideaways. At the bottom of the cross section are the dysfunctional souls for whom normal life “topside” has simply become too complex or painful to bear; they shun the homeless shelters and flee to dark places of their own. And of course there are other, less categorizable, groups that exist on the fringes of these main strata of underground society: predators, hard-core criminals, visionaries, the insane. This latter category comprises a growing percentage of the homeless, primarily due to the abrupt court-ordered closures of many state mental institutions in recent years.

All human beings have the propensity to organize themselves into communities for protection, defense, and social interaction. The homeless—even the deepest, most alienated “moles”—are no exception. Those who have chosen to live in perpetual darkness below ground will still form their own societies and communities. Of course, society itself is a misleading term when dealing with the underground population. Society implies regularity and order; underground living is, by definition, disordered and entropic. Alliances, groups, communities come together and dissolve with the fluidity of mercury. In a place where life is short, often brutal, and always without natural light, the trappings and niceties of civilized society can fall away like so much ash under the least pressure of wind.

L. Hayward, Caste and Society Beneath Manhattan

(forthcoming)