The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City,   ISBN:9781556522413

Customer Rating: 

I read this book immediately after finishing Peter Seidel's 'Underworld, Sites of Concealment'. That book was a collection of fabulous photographs of underground locations and subjects, ancient and modern, in Germany, accompanied by an insightful preface and followed by detailed, informative notes for each picture. In comparing the two books an obvious and intriguing dichotomy becomes apparent. In 'Underground' there are no people present in any of the photographs -none. There are often obvious signs of human habitation or presence, recent or primordial, but the absence of actual bodies stimulates the imagination to wonder what the places depicted so artfully would have been like to walk through or live in or explore. In Ms. Toth's book, the opposite holds true. Her explorations and adventures are entirely people-based. We are always in the presence of a tunnel insider, always learning someone's story even as miles of gloomy track and tunnel are being walked. While there are a few excellent black and white photographs of tunnel sites and individuals, I found myself imagining what the surrounding must look like as I walked the tracks with the author. Toth could have gone into much more detail in describing her surroundings and in making this more of a spooky, dungeon experience. She had an especially good opportunity to do this in the last chapter when she went on a risky expedition by herself. I love the sort of detail that recreates a subterranean, dungeon atmosphere. But that is not her focus and this is not a criticism of her book.

Toht's focus is people and we get to see the tunnels through the people who use them and live in them. (The architecture and history of the tunnels and infrastructure of New York City can be accessed in other books listed in this book's bibliography, and elsewhere, e.g. 'The Works', by Kate Ascher.) Toth became accepted and trusted by a diverse and exceptional array of individuals and communities. She had to really dig for this story (pun intended). Authorities denied the existence of underground dwellers, saying it was all stories and myth. After all, would the wealthiest city of the most advanced and prosperous civilization in history want to admit that it had thousands of it's citizens living in concentration camp conditions literally beneath their feet? Not a comfortable thought, but, if verified as a fact, also not good for tourism or political resumes. Toth persisted and for her efforts we have this great, off-beat book, full of bizarre scenes and scenarios, fascinating stories, and unforgettable characters.

The writing is excellent. This is one of those books that is hard to put down once you start it. I've glanced at a couple of negative Amazon reviews complaining of the writing, but don't buy it. I'm fussy about writing style -allergic to bad writing. Anyone complaining of Toth's writing style is a blockhead as far as I'm concerned.

Here's a very cool thing -something not even remotely possible when Jennifer Toth wrote this book. At the beginning of the chapter entitled 'Hell's Kitchen', she describes a spot on West 48th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, where she and a graffiti artist named Smith hopped a fence and dropped down an embankment to train tracks below so as to enter a tunnel. Five chapters later, during a break from reading, as I was casually Street Viewing my own town for the first time, a gong went off at the back of my brain and I thought 'Hey!' So a few minutes later there I was walking down West 48th Street looking for an obscure bridge and a chain-link fence. Would it still be recognizable 17 years after the book was first published? At first I walked right by it. Then as I studied the Google map, I noticed the line of the underground train tracks and moved my little 'Peg man' to that spot and bingo! There it was -exactly as described in the book. The little dumpster is even still in front of the chain-link fence. Amazing.

(Minor spoiler alert.) Regarding the last chapter -'Blade's Piece'. It's surprising to me that the author didn't address the fact that if Blade had really wanted to talk to her in person it would have been easy enough to do. He could have met up with her as usual when she returned from her weekend out of town. He could also have phoned her at the office. By first spreading word of his deadly anger on the street, his intent was obviously only to frighten her. The extent of his subsequent harassing antics proved that he could have assaulted or killed her at any point if he had really wanted to. Why would he have wanted to frighten her so badly? The story about the killing of the crack dealer seems a transparent ruse to me. Perhaps Toth had crossed a line when she visited Blade's secret tunnel and he really didn't like this. Unlikely. Or perhaps she had crossed a threshold by going on that last exploration to his tunnel on her own, and thus entered a much more dangerous phase of her tunnel studies. Perhaps Blade felt he had to scare her away because he could see that Toth was becoming too comfortable with the entire tunnel ethos. She had had incredible good fortune up to that point, but luck can run out for even the bravest and most well-intentioned if they push it too far. I suspect it was time for her to go. Of all the wise people Toth met down in the tunnels, I think Blade may have been the wisest and the one who cared for her the most.

Customer Rating: 

This book brought our first view of what would later be accepted as truth, that people live under the tunnels. Interviewing several different entities, groups, societies underneath, the author introduces us to a world many of us would think is impossible to believe. The only drawback is that she does not go even deeper into the tunnels leaving the reader wanting to know more.

Customer Rating: 

Overall, the book just seems made up.

The entire book is divided into "journal entries" similar to blogs, with each "post" describing the author's encounters with a different group of tunnel dwellers. These include veteran dwellers, teenagers on the run, widowers, and drug addicts. But there were no dates, no tunnel maps, no diagrams of train tracks, and definitely no citations of other literature on underground dwellers.

Although the first couple of posts seem genuine and believable, the later posts become more and more inconsistent. The author started to talk more and more about graffiti artists, the details of their paintings, and how she liked their "great works of art". She spends less and less time describing details of underground life and gradually spends more and more time on her own opinions.

In the very end, it's almost as if she couldn't make up her mind as to how to end the book. The book abruptly ended with her "fleeing the city", and that was it. There were no details, no transition, no goodbyes--just a "I gotta go". There weren't even any details of how she managed to publish the book despite her not being in the city.

Customer Rating: 

I picked up this book because I am a New Yorker, and I love to read anything about my city. However, this book is being sold as non-fiction, which is completely inaccurate. The locations she describes (and even says she visits) simply do not exist, and to be honest, that does not lend a lot of credibility to the rest of the book. Reading the book actually annoyed me, because after a quick Google, it appears Toth is still earning her living as a journalist, and I find that appalling. Don't bother with this book, the writing is poor and the stories are not true.

Customer Rating: 

This is a absolutely mind blowing book. Jennifer Toth goes into the seldom seen world of the tunnel people. There are worlds underneath the city of New York, vast tunnels some used and some forgotten to all but the Mole People. Sometimes frightening, sometimes sad and always on the edge.
She learns that relationships go a long way and that there are unspoken and spoke rules and regulations in this world.
Often the people in this world are the drug addicts and the alcoholics, sometimes they are insane.
She tells their stories and befriends some along the way.
Death and hardscrabble are a way of life and the Mole People have their own turfs, sometimes 7 stories below the surface of the streets.
Jennifer learns the hard way about unspoken rules and into the tunnels with out a escort.
This is a very interesting and thought provoking book, it will leave you wondering and grateful.