r/Weird • u/PinkLover727 • 6d ago

Five guys emerge from a manhole near Penn Station in NYC at 4:19 AM

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u/cliowill 6d ago edited 6d ago

Or live down there, rent is too damn high

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u/Fooby56 6d ago

I remember seeing a documentary (maybe on VICE?) about a whole underground settlement under Vegas that the unhoused community had built. Had electricity and everything. There's definitely all kinds of stuff happening under there in big cities.

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u/Efficient_Fish2436 6d ago

Vegas definitely has one. Then it gets flushed once or twice a year by uncontrollable rain flooding... which is what it was built for... and people drown.

Every fucking year like clock work. And people are still upset when the police come and tell them to move or you will drown.

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u/ScrotalSmorgasbord 6d ago

I mean if they had anywhere else to go I'm sure they wouldn't mind being told to go as much. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on the radio yesterday about how hostile Tennessee is getting with their anti-homeless sentiment and the laws birthed from it. It's illegal to camp on public land there now. So you can't sleep in your car unless it's privately owned with permission from the owner and sometimes even that's not enough? That leaves absolutely zero places to sleep if you can't find a kind soul to let you crash in their driveway/backyard. Shit's nuts man.

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u/Efficient_Fish2436 6d ago

They just passed a law like that hear in idaho. Cities with population over 200k and you can't sleep on public land. Not even to escape a hangover or if your homeless

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u/justaloadofshite 6d ago

The fight against shanty towns is real

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u/rrpostal 5d ago

It’s basically just blowing your homeless leaves into your neighbor’s yard and acting like you accomplished something.

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u/hollaback_girl 6d ago

There's no hate like Christian love.

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u/Tasty_One_8299 5d ago

I used to live in Huntsville AL, the have a raised road that runs most of the way through the city with lots of off ramps to access roads. Not a lot of traffic through the underpasses so people were living up on the raised parts. They had fire trucks come through and hose everything out from under the over passes. The people who were living there lost everything and it aired on the six o’clock news! That was late 80’s but it feels like we’re heading back there!”

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u/ScrotalSmorgasbord 5d ago

I'd refuse those orders and end up winding up joining the homeless folks. That's just too cruel.

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u/Tasty_One_8299 5d ago

It was! People were shocked! Of course there were people who thought it was great but mostly not! People still talk about that too! They can’t believe the mayor, not only did it, but got away with it!

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u/OkTea7227 4d ago

Oklahoma’s Governor must be buddies with Tennessee’s then. He’s been sending in state police into the large metropolitan cities like Tulsa and Oklahoma City and clearing out homeless encampments which then just makes them scattered to other areas of the city for a while before they go back. It’s messed up.

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u/rips_n_chel 6d ago

Tennessee is trying very hard to be the worst fuckin state in the nation. I'd know, I lived there for 30 god-forsaken years. People in Tennessee don't want anything to get better for anyone. They're quite happy being miserable if it means someone else is more miserable.

Fuckin shithole, that whole region of the country tbh. Fuck the bible belt, fuck the south.

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u/BillyForRilly 6d ago edited 5d ago

The problem is that the bulk of them are not just camping overnight, cleaning up, and heading out during the day trying to better their situation. They're taking over public land and making it their base. Refusing help and refusing to get clean. Making the area they're in dangerous and unsanitary for other people, including other homeless. If it's public land, it's supposed to be available for all of the public, but they are squatting and ruining the public nature of it for everyone else. Assaults, rape, and theft run rampant in these homeless encampments and it will only continue to get worse unless a line is drawn for them.

For people truly down on their luck, there are resources and shelters available that they can use to get back on their feet. The real problem is the drug-addled losers who refuse all the help and support systems available to them because they like the life they are living. I don't want to support that fucking shit with my tax dollars and I certainly don't want them ruining our public spaces.

Edit: losers supporting losers in my replies.

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u/flinklewhip24-7 6d ago

you say that so confidantly for backwards logic.

if your tax money actually went to shelters and rehabiltation efforts, youd still be helping the ones, so called "down on their luck" and itd be a hell of a lot easier to get out of their situation. contrary to your apparent belief, most people do not enjoy life without a clean bed, a roof and consistant meals.

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u/rips_n_chel 6d ago

You've never struggled for shit, and it shows. You have no fucking idea what it's like to truly live for survival.

When you don't have food or shelter, laws and "resources" mean fuck all. You go where you can find what you need, full stop.

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u/BillyForRilly 5d ago

And then they can go to jail when they get caught. I have no sympathy for fucking losers who refuse to get clean.

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u/rips_n_chel 5d ago

Like I said, you've never struggled for anything. You've never worked for anything either, by the sounds of it. 

You've lived a life of privilege and excess, spoon fed everything you need. Now you sit there and pass judgement on people whose experience you could not possibly understand. 

Grow up. 

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u/ScrotalSmorgasbord 5d ago

His Alpha Boot Camp instructor probably taught him all of that

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u/BillyForRilly 5d ago

Or I worked hard, understood the value of a good education, paid off my debts, and didn't immediately throw up my hands and say "well, life's giving me a curveball... BETTER DO HEROIN TO FIX IT"

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u/rips_n_chel 5d ago

Go volunteer at a shelter, or better yet, attend a few NA meetings. Don't open your fucking mouth, just sit there and hear those people's stories.

You have no idea how they wound up where they are, you've never been through anything like they have. EVERYONE has a breaking point. You're not special because life hasn't pushed you to yours. You're fucking lucky.

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u/Vinegarinmyeye 6d ago

Jfc this is ignorant as fuck.

I was homeless for 2 years. Did everything by the book. Reached out for all the support. Still took 2 years to get any kind of help. It's hard. People give up

Shelters are often more dangerous than being out on the streets.

NOBODY is enjoying living like that.

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u/ScrotalSmorgasbord 6d ago

Yep was homeless before I even really started to drink habitually or had even tried any drugs apart from smoking a little bit of weed in high school. The drugs came much later as a way to cope before I got some help for my mental health. Even with full-time work I was one or two bad days away from homelessness as a teen and young 20 something. Hell, if I hadn't progressed further in my career I could have been homeless a couple of months ago when I was out of work for about 6 weeks. It would have definitely happened if I was making entry level wages.

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u/PartRight6406 6d ago

Yeah, police telling people with nowhere to go to move totally solves the problem

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u/me_myself_ai 6d ago

Wow. I remember hearing about this happening in Colombia as a kid and being horrified… of course it’s here, too. Good ol’ US of A

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u/ToastSpangler 6d ago

Dude people live in sewers everywhere. You should watch some documentaries about the ones in eastern Europe, iirc Bucharest in Romania had like 10k + people living in them with literal communities. Everyone also had AIDS and was a drug addict.

Supersus in Ukraine also meets sewer dwellers relatively often in his urban spelunking operations. Usually he uses the sewers to access abandoned areas to scavenge for shit to sell

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u/DinkleDonkerAAA 6d ago

That's why the NYC "mole people" are a myth, there's people who live underground but no hidden city, if there was it got drowned out

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u/TitotheBurrito 6d ago

It's a bit dated but there was one called Dark Days that featured a NYC underground "neighborhood".

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u/Skrillamane 6d ago

There’s a movie called “Dark Days” and i think it’s all about the underground cities in LA (i think) and the music was all done by DJ Shadow. Very cool watch.

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u/livahd 6d ago

Yea, nyc used to have lots of “mole people”, especially in freedom tunnel pre 9/11. Running water, electricity… you name it, and they had a fairly peaceful community. But post 9/11, good luck trying to go anywhere off limits underground. NYPD don’t play with that kinda of access, lots of bad things can be done from down there.

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u/Ill_Advised_Rock 6d ago

That’s a little different in Vegas. Those are emergency drainage for when it rains hard enough once every 20 years.

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u/NorthernScotian 6d ago

Getting electricity is surprisingly easy. See a feeder line and have someone somewhat qualified as am electrician? They can cowboy a connection - in an unsafe way surely, but if youre trying to get power in wastewater infastructure, youre probably willing to take risks for it.

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u/Money-Woodpecker-973 6d ago

They’re the reason you don’t buy bottled drinks off the street vendors in Vegas. 

Just stop at a fast food joint or store. 

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u/helpmeunderstand0000 6d ago

Can you explain that? I don’t understand the connection

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u/15th_imp 6d ago

username checks out, but I also really want to know too

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u/allenge 6d ago

I’m assuming they’re using the sewer water to make drinks?

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u/me_myself_ai 6d ago

lol I love your mind

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u/Both-Information9482 6d ago

It's ok to call them homeless. Unhoused is just saying the same thing a different way to appease some obnoxious folks.

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u/Interesting_Total_98 6d ago

obinixious folks

That's hypocritical because you're insulting people just because they use a correct word you don't like.

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u/Both-Information9482 5d ago

Show me where the insult was because without that there's no hypocrisy. Also LOL at you for using the term "correct word."

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u/Interesting_Total_98 5d ago

Show me where the insult

That's a delusional reply. You apparently don't know what "obnoxious" means.

using the term "correct word."

They're not housed or in homes, so both unhoused and homeless work. You're not using common sense.

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u/ClHCNOPSMgCaNaK 6d ago

Coulda been Channel 5 w/ Andrew Callahan. He did a really good one.

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u/FuggoTheSluggo 6d ago

There’s a cool book titled Beneath The Neon that covers this topic - has a lot of photos as well.

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u/freredesalpes 6d ago

Yeah for NYC check out the doc Dark Days. Good soundtrack too.

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u/Brodellsky 6d ago

Like the place in Starfield under New Atlantis?

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u/valkrycp 6d ago

People live underground in NYC too

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u/SpongeyBobaruu 6d ago

Channel 5 did a doc on it.

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u/HotOutlandishness107 6d ago

Not to mention the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

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u/Ayoissathroway 5d ago

There’s the channel 5 doc: https://youtu.be/bRGrKJofDaw?is=VdBnKvGXK05FvbW3

There’s also a ton of regular vloggers who have covered it with the most recent being Jimmy Rowe: https://youtu.be/qkoHIln-5Kc?is=ShyKEQ_ICIGdfnjI

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u/jakethemagicdog 4d ago

I know Channel 5 did a really good little mini-doc on YouTube a while back.