In an attempt to show you places you would never find tourists in, I'm writing this series to bring the hidden treasures of New York to light and make sure that you can carry your own whenever you find yourself-- and you will -- bantering with any native New Yorker about anything ranging from why Joe's on Carmine is the best pizza to where to find a dead body in a well in Soho-- and you'll come to know that place very soon.

And that's why this week I bring you to The Freedom Tunnel, an Amtrak tunnel that runs underneath Riverside Park that was once used as a haven for graffiti artists and the homeless alike. The entrance to the tunnel, which is actually just a five minute [New York] walk to 125 Street, is owned by Amtrak and is technically considered trespassing. Spectrum does not advise anyone to get into legal trouble by walking to the West Side Highway exit at 125 Street, climbing through the hole in the fence covered by the second tree, and walking south until the tunnel's entrance while remaining to the left to stay far from the active train track. No, we advise against it, but if one were to do so, know there are plenty of Youtube videos and articles of people showing you how to do so.

Well, now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about the actual tunnel. Made in the 1930s by New York City's most beloved figure of Robert Moses to clear the air for residents on the Upper West Side, the tunnel went in and out of use for 50 years, until 1980 when it was halted completely.

For 11 years, it remained unused until the tunnel was bought by Amtrak and reopened for commercial use. Since then, plenty of modern urban explorers have gone through the tunnels to see what remained there from that 11 year period of disuse. While a large portion of those explorers travel through the tunnel without any problems, it is important to note that there are Amtrak police roaming around the entrance who can legally detain and arrest you.

Legal and professional repercussions aside, it's an amazing art gallery to explore. Named after graffiti artist Chris "Freedom" Pape, the tunnel was home to hundreds of homeless people during the 1980s and part of the 1990s, where shanty towns were built underground.

A photo posted by @karmaloop on Sep 1, 2015 at 7:05pm PDT

via karmaloop/Instagram

These people, affectionately called "mole people," lived in the tunnels to avoid the crime and drug epidemic of 1980s New York. Surprisingly, the city and police actually allowed them to live there, considering it was technically safer than living in shelters or roaming the streets.

Many explorers go for whatever remaining shanty towns are left, most of which were destroyed by Amtrak and the police after a murder in the tunnel and after Amtrak bought the land. Plenty more go for whatever graffiti wasn't painted over in the years since.

Pape, who was the first person to go inside the tunnel for graffiti purposes, was one of the forerunners in the graffiti art movement. Pape painted hundreds of murals and pieces inside the tunnels until the police started coming in, working alongside graffiti artist friends Sane Smith and others.

There are plenty of pictures online from paintings that are no longer there or are falling apart, including Pape's most famous work of the "Coca-Cola Mural" or "There's No Way Like the American Way," which takes a 1930s billboard and paints correlations between the Great Depression and the homeless living in the tunnel in the 1980s.

Other works of his include his "self-portrait" which features his signature leather jacket with a spray can as a face, a Venus de Milo, a gigantic hand from the Sistine Chapel, a portrait of the Unibomber, and more.

While numerous artists have left their mark in the tunnel in the years since, it is always a treat to find Pape's work, as well as other artists that painted about issues that New York faced during the time. While it is pretty easy to get into, it still is illegal, and keeping that in mind, there are a great deal of pictures that showcase the art inside the tunnel as well as the shanty houses of the homeless that lived there before. View them below.

http://massappeal.com/photos-exploring-nycs-freedom-tunnel/

http://www.citynoise.org/article/8210

http://hyperallergic.com/29451/nyc-underground-a-journey-to-the-freedom-tunnel/

http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/freedom-tunnel/