Tunnels

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The "tunnel" area under the Plant Science building

Access tunnels are found in abundance at many universities, but in today's climate of risk management, evidence and information is often carefully concealed. The greatest wealth of information on Cornell's tunnel system comes from Dear Uncle Ezra as well as from old newsgroup postings at alt.college.tunnels.

[edit] Verified tunnels

  • Ezra's tunnel, a former water pathway, runs from the defunct dam above Ithaca falls through the south wall of the gorge to the Ithaca Gun Factory. Water entered the gun factory via a pipe with a diameter of about one foot.
  • ILR Conference Center and Ives Hall are connected by a utility tunnel which may have been used for people traffic at one point. It can be viewed through the locked doors in the basement level of both buildings.
  • The new biotech building and the plant science building are connected by a large tunnel designed specifically for human traffic. This is the newest tunnel on the Cornell campus.
  • Lyon and McFaddin Hall are connected by a tunnel that goes underneath the war memorial arches.
  • Uris Library and Olin Library are linked by a large tunnel which is open to library staff during business hours as well as during Slope Day. Access is easiest via the Olin Library basement southwest corner.
  • Steam and utility tunnels run under Plant Science and Warren Hall. Although they do not appear to run outside of the the buildings' subbasements, the passages have all the appearances of tunnels. Further exploration in the Plant Science building area yields several basement level access points and the remains of a hidden garden. Access is easiest at the small door on the bottom of the east stairwell of the plant science building.
  • The Cornell Synchrotron is probably Cornell's most expansive documented tunnel, running deep beneath the track.
  • Teagle and Barton are linked by a tunnel.
  • Alpha Delta Phi on west campus is connected to a "goat house" near the building by a basement tunnel.
  • Via the Clark Hall subbasement, eight story vertical shafts can be accessed. These are not tunnels in the traditional horizontal sense.
  • There is a 5' penstock running from the access house at the north end of the Beebee Lake dam to the hydroelectric plant 140 vertical feet below. There is an access grate near the east end of the tennis courts adjacent to Risley. The penstock is primarily a water intake, and not a tunnel available for human access. Note that the penstock for the hydroelectric plant is different from the rusting penstock feeding the Hydraulics Lab which is a defunct building on the south wall of the gorge.
  • Lake source cooling pipelines run up to campus via the Stewart Avenue Bridge; the pipes are 42 inches in diameter but are constantly filled with water.\
  • According to the blueprints of the new AAP School building being built just North of Sibely Fine Arts Library, there are a plethora of tunnels stemming from Sibely. These include maintenance tunnels for steam, water and telecom pipes( 5' to 4' wide) , drainage pipes, (2' wide), and one large tunnel (possibly up to 8' wide) that is labeled as abandoned and appears to have run from Sibely to the gorge wall.

[edit] Rumored tunnels

  • There is a tunnel from the women's bathroom in Uris Library or Uris Hall to the outside of the building.
  • There is a utility tunnel between Clark and Newman Labs. This seems likely due to the proximity of the buildings.
  • There is a tunnel running under Cornell from the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing.
  • The synchrotron's blowout emergency path runs directly into the south wall of the Fall Creek gorge near the old hydraulics lab.
  • There are bomb testing facilities with blowout tunnels on the east side of Olin/Baker Laboratory.
  • There is a tunnel to a morgue adjacent to Sage Chapel accessed on the basement level.
  • There are tunnels that run indiscriminately all over campus.

[edit] References

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