Warning: minor spoilers for the Caffrey Conversation stories.
When Penna encouraged me to write stories for the AU, sending Neal to college was at the top of my list of possible subjects. I had begun corresponding with her when she was posting Choirboy Caffrey. Her scenes where she described Neal's love of campuses helped spark the idea. Penna's AU allowed me to offer Neal a second chance. In Choirboy Caffrey, Neal was thinking about the advantages a college campus provided a con artist. He didn't realize that soon he'd acquire a new perspective. For more about Choirboy Caffrey, visit Penna's post: Building Blocks of Choirboy Caffrey.
New York has many excellent universities to choose from. I settled on Columbia University primarily because its art history department is rated among the top ten in the country. I assumed the challenge of being accepted at a highly competitive school would appeal to an overachiever like Neal. Moreover, June's mansion, in actuality the Schinasi House, is only eight blocks south of Columbia's southern boundary. It was as if the writers were foreshadowing that Neal would attend Columbia someday.
When I picked Columbia, little did I realize that it has an additional lure—the tunnels!
A vast network of tunnels lies underneath the campus, rich with history, legends, and traditions. Some of the tunnels date back to the 1800s when the campus site was home to a mental asylum. The tunnel network has been the scene of numerous hacks, the most infamous of which was when Ken Hechtman stole Uranium-238 from Pupin Hall in 1986. Maps exist for the grid. Wikipedia has one example. The tunnels are divided into legal passages, forbidden routes, and tunnels that are only rumored to exist.
For Neal, the tunnels have proved irresistible. He values them as a way to traverse the campus undetected and for their potential as hiding spots. In Choirboy Caffrey, Neal refers to the concealment potential of college campuses. Columbia's tunnels increase the potential exponentially. Neal's made it a personal mission to uncover those rumored tunnels and has already discovered several. Richard, who has the art studio next to his, is almost as avid a tunneler as Neal and has accompanied him on many of his explorations.
Neal is not the only member of his family to love the tunnels. His grandfather Edmund also attended Columbia. When he was a student, the Signature Room didn't exist. He added his initials later during a reunion visit. Now Neal and Henry have also added their tags. The video below includes footage of the Signature Room.
Once Mozzie overcame his fear of germs and rat reservoirs, he also embraced the tunnels. He unearthed a previously unknown tunnel that backs up to the Aloha Emporium. The Emporium is a block south of Columbia's southern boundary. Mozzie has constructed a bunker in its basement which has direct access to the tunnels. Mozzie is particularly interested in the oldest sections of the grid. In the slime of those ancient brick walls, he's discovered what he believes to be evidence of extraterrestrials.
The university has made it increasingly difficult to access the forbidden areas. In 2004-2005, the time of Neal's first year at Columbia, the safeguards were not as draconian as they are now.
If you'd like to learn more about Columbia's tunnels, here are some links I've found useful:
- Tunnels on WikiCU
- Forbidden Tunnels Guard CU History
- Unearthing the Underground from the Columbia Spectator
- An article about tagging in the Columbia Student News
Raphael's Dragon on Archive of Our Own
Raphael's Dragon on FanFiction
This was interesting! Congratulations on the third anniversary as well. I am looking forward to reading these additional pieces of the stories in your blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks! We should do a follow-up on Neal's tunneling adventures. Penna featured the Seattle underground in Caffrey Disclosure. Someday Neal needs to have a caper in Paris and explore their cavernous network.
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