Zoo York Tunnel
Dubbed "Zoo York" by graffiti pioneer and rapper ALI (Marc André Edmonds), founder of the Soul Artists, the subway tunnel provided a "scene" where crews of Manhattan graffiti artists gathered at night. The tunnel itself was a "cut-and-cover" subway construction project which ripped through Central Park from 1971 to 1973. Extensions of the Broadway BMT and Sixth Avenue IND lines, continued north from their former 57th Street terminal stations, merged just south of the City Zoo, then snaked underneath the zoo grounds and out under Fifth Avenue, where they connected to the recently completed 63rd Street Line.
During construction, the site was left unguarded at night. Unauthorized entry was discouraged by a tall aluminum-sheathed wall erected around the open ground by the New York City Transit Authority—but this hardly deterred local graffiti writers from boosting one another over it and climbing down into the tunnel below. Down inside the tunnel, there were four sets of subway tracks (uptown and downtown IND and BMT lines) constructed on two levels deep underneath the park, creating something of a subterranean monkey-house environment for invading street kids to climb around and scrawl graffiti on.
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Famous quotes containing the words zoo, york and/or tunnel:
“...there was the annual Fourth of July picketing at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. ...I thought it was ridiculous to have to go there in a skirt. But I did it anyway because it was something that might possibly have an effect. I remember walking around in my little white blouse and skirt and tourists standing there eating their ice cream cones and watching us like the zoo had opened.”
—Martha Shelley, U.S. author and social activist. As quoted in Making History, part 3, by Eric Marcus (1992)
“We didn’t want any men in our group. They drink their loans, they don’t work their stores. Why should we have to pay for their irresponsibilities?”
—Brachiate Guioth De Espinosa, Colombian storekeeper. As quoted in the New York Times, p. A6 (July 15, 1994)
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)