Tunnel

Digging Up the Real Story Behind the Tunnels

 

Rumors of UNC’s tunnels abound: Of the stories of students hiding out underground, of criminals walking the tunnels at night, of the ghost of the college student who died there.
Not all stories are true, of course.

And now, especially, if you don’t want to be arrested, don’t go down there.

There are tunnels under the campus, of course, to carry the plumbing, electrical lines, sewage pipes and other maintenance materials. Some were built in the early days of the college, on central campus. Those are the ones that are allegedly haunted.

There’s a newer tunnel, running from Tobey-Kendel dining room over to west campus and Candelaria Hall. Again, it is a maintenance tunnel.

On the older campus, they built a tunnel along the eastern side of Gunter Hall in 1959-60. It is said to be the reason that the wide sidewalk running past Gunter does not freeze or hold snow in the winter. The underground heating has kept the sidewalk warm.

In all, the old and new campuses are connected with a series of tunnels that form a V-shape pattern, according to Kirk Leichliter, assistant vice president of Facilities Management for the campus. “It connects Crabbe Hall, Kepner, Carter, Gunter, Tobey-Kendel and across the new campus over to Candelaria Hall,” Leichliter says.

They have sealed off the entrances to the tunnels, and there’s barely enough room for a person to walk inside them, according to Leichliter. “Also we have heavily alarmed the tunnels and entrances. It would be a crime – trespassing – to enter the tunnels without authorization.”

There were regular under-the-street tunnels – one under 8th Avenue and one under 11th Avenue on the new campus.

The 8th Avenue tunnel led from Guggenheim Hall area, and under the street, so students walking to the old dormitories on the east campus could safely cross 8th Avenue. Those old dormitories, and the 8th Avenue tunnel are now gone.

On 11th Avenue, an under-street tunnel for the same reason: to safely get the walking students across a busy street. Still in operation, that tunnel leads from the University Center to the back campus of Bishop-Lehr Hall, or the old UNC Laboratory School.

Not long after it was built, the college had some graffiti problems, especially with gangs spray-painting their symbols and insignia on the walls of the tunnel. However, the university’s art department solved that problem.

The inside of the tunnel is now covered with thousands of painted handprints, some with the students’ names attached.

Of the old tunnels across campus, there were stories in the 1970s and ‘80s of students playing Dungeons and Dragons underground. But the most interesting aspect of the campus tunnels is the “haunting.”

According to the legend, a college fraternity found an opening to one of the old tunnels on campus and the frat members were going inside to have fights – with BB guns. They say that one night, a student in the tunnel broke some gas pipes inside, and fire flared up and the student was killed.

According to legend, the tunnels were forever sealed at that point, but some students occasionally find their way inside. They have reported seeing a ghostly figure in the tunnel, and say they felt the sting of being shot with a BB gun.

Of course, there are no news stories or police records of such a death ever occurring in the tunnels.

But that doesn’t stop the haunted tales or rumor-filled stories from proliferating. NV

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