My parents took me to some catacombs and all I got was this lousy article, and a tour of the Altschul basement.

For family weekend last week, the only thing my catholic parents actually planned, predictably, was a tour of a catholic cemetery and its catacombs. Inspired by Greedy Peasant, I went into the tour hoping to be transported into a whimsical, medieval, tassel-filled experience, but was instead transported to the Barnard tunnels. The Cemtember series has inspired speculation for halloween costumes, but also got me strangely excited for the tour. Instead of an eccentric, queer, tassel-covered guide, we got a very kind but admittedly less exciting parishioner, who just didn’t quite capture the amusing and fanciful aura I had envisioned. I was shaking in my uncomfortably soaked socks, and waiting to see these much anticipated catacombs.

The massive, imposing oak doors of the catacombs opened, and I stepped into… the Barnard tunnels? The same white plaster walls, the same concrete floors decorated by wet footprints, and the same exact vaguely ominous vibe. Suddenly I turned a corner, and I was… walking up to Mail Services? Were these mailboxes or columbariums? I could no longer tell. I continued to wander, and suddenly I was passing the blue lockers under Barnard Hall. I asked, to no one in particular, “where am I?” I heard the vocal fry of Greedy Peasant himself speaking to me through the ether, “the spirit of the Barnard tunnels is with you always,” his voice echoed through the halls.

I continued to wander, entering a Diana lower level classroom. Sitting in the classroom which held several classes I had shopped and dropped out of, I wondered, does anyone attend a full semester of classes here? Devoid of windows or any source of natural light, it seems too depressing a space to weather the winter months in, hour after hour. Maybe all classes in these classrooms are simply liminal lectures too, to be attended while waiting to get into another, never to be completed.

But how did I get here? Are the tunnels such intensely liminal spaces that they transcend time and space? It seemed I had stumbled upon an exceptionally strange metaphysical phenomenon: the Barnard tunnels can be accessed through anywhere in the world at any time, if your spirit is liminal enough. Click the heels of any pair of chunky docs, and wish to be covered in rainwater leakage, and you’ll be there. Anywhere where perpetually wet concrete floors can be found, so can the Barnard tunnels. They’re not a place, but a state of mind. 

Tunnel via Bwarchives