Washington Tunnels
Washington, D.C.’s federal architects have a special proclivity for underground tunnels. District residents navigate the tubes like human submarines, and rely on their services for basic needs like drinking water and central heat. Contributing factors include the city’s unique building height limit, extreme weather, and the security considerations of recent decades. As a result, Washington sits atop an interconnected layer cake of transportation, utility, and pedestrian tunnels extending three dimensionally beneath city streets. Given their importance to daily life in the nation's capital, it's surprising to find that the full picture of Washington's various tunnels remains unpainted. I’m currently working to fill that gap.
View the project website at WashingtonTunnels.com
This project is currently being expanded into a larger print format with Georgetown University Press.
Washington Post | “Amateur Archivist Takes On A Quest Through History — And The D.C. Region’s Extensive Tunnel System”
“A recreational mapmaker has received a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to compile a meticulous anthology of all the tunnels in the District — subway and freight rail tunnels, pedestrian passageways, underground steam tunnels, sewage and water pipelines, and every other type of subterranean thoroughfare he can find” … Read More
CityLab | “Mapping The Many Tunnels Under Washington, D.C.”
“Washington, D.C., has all kinds of tunnels, from the many miles carved out by Metro to the underground labyrinth that connects the government buildings on Capitol Hill. Now those tunnels and more are on display in the “D.C. Underground Atlas,” a new, highly detailed interactive history of how underground D.C. came be—whether for government, transit, sewage, or steam. Taken together, the project impressively maps out the city’s tunnel construction, providing a cultural history of the federal government and the city where it sits” … Read More
NBC4 | '“DC Tunnel History Site Flagged Suspicious Activity Before Capitol Insurrection”
“The founder and administrator of an obscure website about underground infrastructure in Washington, D.C., saw a sudden and suspicious spike in traffic in the days before the U.S. Capitol insurrection. The sharp increase in web visitors alarmed the site’s operator so much that he contacted the FBI” … Read More
99% Invisible Podcast | “Infrastructure and Insurrection”
“Today I want to share the story of someone who seems like a quintessential beautiful nerd. He was born and raised in DC. He loves the city, and the obscure infrastructure of the city. He also intersects with recent history in this very strange way. This guy’s name is Elliot Carter” … Read More
The Washington Tunnels project is supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts.