‘Mole people’ and subway tunnel dwellers

Jennifer Toth's 1993 book The Mole People popularized the idea of organized subterranean communities living beneath Manhattan in subway and utility tunnels. Subsequent journalism and municipal records have documented instances of homeless individuals and encampments in parts of the subway and utility infrastructure, while scholars and reporters dispute the scale, organization, and accuracy of Toth's claims. The topic remains a mixture of documented occurrences and contested interpretations within New York urban lore.