191st STREET TUNNEL

To catch the #3 downtown I go up a couple blocks from home base to the Broadway entrance of the 191st street stop. It’s worth noting for this immense tunnel, at least a block long, bored into the hillside. Dirty and lit in this sickly yellow cast (not very obvious in a black and white image), it carries echos like threats. It’s a morose and forboding entry that conjures images of some Cold War era fallout shelter from hell. It reminds me of the unlit two-mile stretch of decomissioned tunnel up near Snoqualmie pass for hikers and bikers, if only for the idea that if all the lights went out you’d be seriously fucked. The other day a woman walking in front of me finished her coffee and just tossed the empty cup on the ground as if the whole place were her personal trash can.