Description
Book SynopsisBeneath the surface of Manhattan’s Riverside Park run railroad tunnels, disused for decades, where over the years unhoused people took shelter. The sociologist Terry Williams ventured into the tunnel residents’ world, seeking to understand life on the margins and out of sight.
Trade ReviewIn
Life Underground, Terry Williams meets Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the netherworld of New York City, unearthing the everyday lives of the city’s misbegotten bottom dwellers, immortalizing them for posterity. Richly observed and well-written, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares to truly understand the lives of those at the end of the line. -- Elijah Anderson, author of
Black in White SpaceLife Underground provides unique documentation of the lives of homeless people living in underground tunnels and other spaces beneath the streets of New York City. No other work studies in so much detail the lives of people who might be considered the worst off of the city's worst off. -- Thomas J. Main, author of
Homelessness in New York City: Policymaking from Koch to de BlasioTerry Williams has once again written a beautiful ethnographic piece, offering us a profound sociological work on 'shelterless life' below and at the margins of one of the richest but also socially polarized cities in the world: New York. Based on interviews, field notes, maps, journals, dream records, and a photographic register, Williams makes visible the living conditions of a population that is all too often invisibilized: homeless people. Their voices and life experiences are at the center of this research work together with the neoliberal transformations of said city. A fascinating and illuminating book that everyone should read, especially those who want to understand, challenge, and put an end to the housing crisis - in New York and globally. -- Ana Cárdenas Tomažič, Institute for Social Research (IfS), Goethe University Frankfurt
Table of ContentsPrologue
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Descent
2. Genesis
3. Underground Ecology
4. Men Underground: Bernard, Kal, and Jason
5. Working Life
6. Food: Restaurants and Soup Kitchens
7. Women Underground: Tin Can Tina
8. Beatrice and Bobo
9. The Tagalong
10. The Rabbit Hole
11. Reflections on Life Under the Street
Endnote
Epilogue: Mediating the Underground: Bernard’s Exit
Appendix A: Income and Housing in New York City, 2002–2014
Appendix B: Behavior Mapping and Cartography
Appendix C: Interview Questions for Bernard, Princeton University, 2012
Appendix D: Bernard’s Dream and Postcard
Appendix E: Legacies of Harm: Policy and Policing
Appendix F: Where Are They Now?
Notes
Index
