Secrets of Columbia University                   

                                              Map of the Columbia University Tunnel System

The Tunnel System

Columbia has one of the largest underground tunnel systems in the country; among universities, it is second only to MIT in size. The tunnels have different origins—some date all the way back to the Bloomingdale asylum (see below), others were built by the university to transport coal or connect many of the 71 buildings on campus. For generations, college students have utilized and explored them, creating a rich lore. In the anti-war protests of 1968, students both used the tunnels and sealed them off so the police could not use them. During the Manhattan Project, scientists reputedly used the tunnels to transport radioactive materials and in the 1980s, a student discovered uranium there (as Jack’s father claims, he was said to have put it under his roommate’s bed, though there is no report of him glowing.)

Because I am claustrophobic (not to mention I didn’t want to have an experience like Jack’s), I didn’t venture into the tunnels myself, relying on photos and other research material. But I did sneak into the basement of Pupin to see their entrance. 

                                                                                Pupin Hall

The Manhattan Project

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, some of the world’s brightest physicists gathered in the basement of Pupin, the physics building at Columbia, to construct the world’s first atom bomb. Among their accomplishments at Columbia was the first instance of splitting atoms, which they achieved with a machine called the cyclotron, a 65-ton magnet. The Manhattan Project was later moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee and eventually Los Alamos, where the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were created.

For decades after the Columbia chapter of the project ended, however, the cyclotron continued to occupy a room in Pupin’s basement laboratory. In 1965, it was gutted but its shell remained a popular student attraction (especially since it could only be viewed by sneaking through the tunnel system as it was closed to public access). In 2008, shortly after I finished The Twilight Prisoner, I was saddened to hear that it was dismantled and sold for scrap.

                                                Photo of the Bloomingdale Asylum

Bloomingdale Asylum

Few people know that one of the world’s greatest universities sits on the site of a former insane asylum. In 1890, Columbia University bought up land that belonged to the Bloomingdale asylum, a 77-acre facility, which was originally constructed in 1821. Unlike many asylums, Bloomingdale had orchards and stables and the physicians who worked there, like Dr. Pliny Earle, pioneered humane treatment of the insane. Most of the asylum’s buildings were demolished but the administrative building, now Buell Hall, still remains, and houses the French cultural center.