Photo illustration by Kit Leffler
*Ryan remembers it clearly: It was one of those nights with a sky so overcast and dark that the very air around him seemed to be made of some sooty ether, blotting out heavenly bodies and sucking the light out of the lamps before it could reach him.
It was perfect.
He and his friends had decided – it being early enough in the second semester of his sophomore year that none of them had anything better to do – that they should explore the tunnels under campus. Everyone knew they were there, but no one knew much about them beyond that. They were a curious lot by nature, and the tunnels picked at their imaginations.
They also had a pretty good idea that the KU Public Safety Office wouldn't be too keen about a half-dozen college students wandering around in the tunnels, so the darkness of the evening worked in well with their plans to go exploring.
They were right, of course. Jim Long, vice provost for facilities planning and management, says entering the tunnels without authorization amounts to criminal trespass. That is why Ryan's name has been changed for this article.
Their chosen place of entry was the manhole just up the hill from Spencer Museum of Art. One of Ryan's friends had done some preliminary probing and discovered that it had an easy cover to pry up. Once they had removed the heavy obstacle, they dropped down into the tunnel's mouth one by one, leaving two guys topside to cover the lid and wait for their return.
Underground, the tunnels were unnaturally warm and smelled like an old attic. They were lit, at least, by a series of bare
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lightbulbs along the ceiling. At some places Ryan and his friends could walk almost upright with plenty of elbow room, at others the passage narrowed almost to the point where he thought they would have to turn back. Occasionally the passage would slope up or down, other times it would split off into several branches whose endings Ryan could only guess at. Sticking together, Ryan and his friends chose what felt like the straightest and widest path and continued on through the seemingly endless catacombs.
The tunnels under campus were put in place to carry steam from the original steam plant to the other buildings for heat during the winter. Eventually, the tunnels wound up carrying other things, such as cables for electricity.
Long refused to disclose the exact trail of the tunnels, citing security concerns, but he says that as the University grows, the tunnels will continue to grow. He did say that they connect all of the major buildings on campus, stretching under the sidewalks and streets that students walk along every day.
Because of their age, some of the tunnels have become unsafe, prompting the University to start ripping them out and refurbishing them. The tract at $14^{\mathrm{th}}$ Street and Jayhawk Boulevard has been the first to receive attention.
Several of the supports within the tunnels are crumbling, and many of the pipes are insulated with asbestos.
"It's kind of a safety hazard, essentially," says Katie Nichols, of Sabatini Architects, who was in charge of the project.
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had been the oldest portion of the tunnels, and had been drilled through solid rock instead of being a tube laid into a trench. The main worry was that water would seep in through the rock and flood the tunnel, a problem that the new tunnel has been designed to overcome.
She says the recently renovated section.
The condition of the tunnels is the main reason that people aren't allowed in them, says Lynn Bretz, director of University Relations. She says that they were not designed for student traffic to begin with, and their deterioration has made them even less safe for trespassers.
Nichols does have a lasting impression from the time she spent in the tunnel before it was ripped out.
For Ryan and his friends, the creepiness of the tunnels was part of their appeal. Every step across the floor had to be taken with care, hunched over and mindful of the scalding-hot steam pipes running along the wall. Untold decades of grime covered the floors, making them ever more treacherous.
"They're really creepy," she says.
The explorers trekked as far as the Kansas Memorial Union and then Watson Library before security guards who seemed suspicious of their lookouts prompted them to quit for the evening.
In the end, despite risking criminal charges and finding nothing in the tunnels, Ryan says that the experience was a worthwhile one. He says he'll always remember his trip to the tunnels, and that of all the pointless, illegal and dangerous things he's done since coming to college, it remains his favorite.
.*Name has been changed