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Description
The Not So Vacant City -- Some info...
Located underneath of downtown Philadelphia

The dawning 1900's were fragile times for cities, and methods of growth were uncapped and unrestrained. Expensive apartments demanded the best of the available world--the soothing sounds of pleasant city life--none of the grunge of the aging industry that so thanklessly kept the cities thriving. Still, all depended on that which industry provided, including those who wanted it to remain far away from their backyards. To accomplish this, no expense was spared to send these products below the streets to the areas that needed them. Seventy years later, much has changed in the cities, including the decentralization of the industrial sectors from the city center. Alone and forgotten, the old networks of freight tunnels and viaducts that channel their accumulation of water remain as forgotten relics to that much different past.

But, that which is cast aside by the privileged is unconditionally adopted by the not. The rit-rats. The tunnel-rats. The moles of the underworld--painted by shadows and shrouded in lore and isolation. They live here not because they reject--our--ideals and norms...but because we have rejected them. The underworld becomes another world--a safer and accepting one. An opportunity to live without judgment and oppression. Any life forced to live here is oppression just the same, but it is different--it is seized oppression. A way of making the best out of the worst. Slipping beneath the cracks surely takes on new meaning in this place where only columns of light leak through from the other side, providing the only type of warmth this other world could ever know.

Please, full view is much better! Thanks

Description
The Not So Vacant City -- Some info...
Located underneath of downtown Philadelphia

The dawning 1900's were fragile times for cities, and methods of growth were uncapped and unrestrained. Expensive apartments demanded the best of the available world--the soothing sounds of pleasant city life--none of the grunge of the aging industry that so thanklessly kept the cities thriving. Still, all depended on that which industry provided, including those who wanted it to remain far away from their backyards. To accomplish this, no expense was spared to send these products below the streets to the areas that needed them. Seventy years later, much has changed in the cities, including the decentralization of the industrial sectors from the city center. Alone and forgotten, the old networks of freight tunnels and viaducts that channel their accumulation of water remain as forgotten relics to that much different past.

But, that which is cast aside by the privileged is unconditionally adopted by the not. The rit-rats. The tunnel-rats. The moles of the underworld--painted by shadows and shrouded in lore and isolation. They live here not because they reject--our--ideals and norms...but because we have rejected them. The underworld becomes another world--a safer and accepting one. An opportunity to live without judgment and oppression. Any life forced to live here is oppression just the same, but it is different--it is seized oppression. A way of making the best out of the worst. Slipping beneath the cracks surely takes on new meaning in this place where only columns of light leak through from the other side, providing the only type of warmth this other world could ever know.

Please, full view is much better! Thanks