5 rules for living in a New York City subway tunnel

1. Always keep a light on you.

2. Try to wait for a rainy day to look for a room. You don’t want to get things all set up and then find out there is a leak.

3. Always have more than one spot.

4. Anything you need can be found in the garbage.

5. Always clean out a spot before you go dragging a carpet down there.
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They appear in Sewell Chan's October 7, 2008 New York Times story about "Pitch Black," a graphic novel by Brooklyn artist Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton, "... a homeless man who used to spend most of his nights underground in nooks and crannies wedged around subway tunnels."

Here's the article.

Graphic Tale of Life in Subway Tunnels

In the four years that Youme Landowne, a Brooklyn artist, has known Anthony Horton, a homeless man who used to spend most of his nights underground, in nooks and crannies wedged around subway tunnels, Ms. Landowne learned several basic rules for subterranean life. The rules are spelled out in a spare, affecting book of illustrations, “Pitch Black,” published this month by Cinco Puntos Press, an independent publisher based in El Paso, Tex. Here are some:

* Always keep a light on you.
* Try to wait for a rainy day to look for a room. You don’t want to get things all set up and then find out there is a leak and you have to start over.
* Always have more than one spot.
* Anything you need can be found in the garbage.
* Always clean out a spot before you go dragging a carpet down there. (It just makes it easier.)

Ms. Landowne, who graduated from the New School and has lived in New York City off and on for 20 years, met Mr. Horton in 2004, around the publication of her children’s book, “Sélavi: a Haitian Story of Hope,” based on the real experiences of street children who set up a radio station.
Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton met shortly after she published a children’s book in 2004.

As the book explains — in prose set against the black and gray watercolor images — the two met on a subway station downtown and struck up an intense conversation that continued on several train rides.

Ms. Landowne, 38, is an artist and activist who grew up in Miami. Mr. Horton, 40, grew up in foster care in New York City and has struggled with homelessness and addiction. (He has a criminal record and is now serving time in prison.)

The book details the filthy and often frightening conditions in the subway tunnels and introduces the readers to a handful of colorful characters, though its focus is on the two main characters’ friendship and collaboration.

Ms. Landowne worked on the illustrations since 2004, even while spending about a year living in Laos. Mr. Horton’s words inspired the text, and he is given credit as a co-author; he also made drawings used at the beginning and end of the book.

Although the book is suitable for a young audience, Ms. Landowne said in a phone interview that she hoped “Pitch Black” would inspire adults who ride the subway to notice more of their surroundings.

“I don’t judge people who need a little bit of space when they’re on the train,” she said, “but I feel I benefit from all the stories that people share with me.”

Too many riders, she said, just have their iPod earphones on. “I’m shocked by how many people on the train are tuned out,” she said.

“Our memories and dreams walk beside us, informing everything we think we see,” Ms. Landowne and Mr. Horton write in the book. “We are scavengers of stories. We seek hidden messages of hope and find them. We gather evidence of resistance to oppression and despair.”

Fifteen years ago, a book by Jennifer Toth, “The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City” (Chicago Review Press, 1993), drew attention to the plight of homeless adults living underground, many of them suffering from substance abuse or mental illness problems. The book was criticized for geographical inaccuracies, and its depiction of large, well-organized, tribal underground societies of people who had eschewed surface life has been dismissed by many scholars as an exaggeration. Nevertheless, advocates for the homeless believe that there are adults who live semiregularly in subway stations and tunnels, though no reliable estimate of their numbers is available.

Representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs a homeless outreach program, said they had no comment on “Pitch Black.”

Ms. Landowne said that Mr. Horton’s time underground was mostly spent in and around subway tunnels under the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The book depicts the spaces he inhabited as dark and dangerous and life there as anything but well-organized.

Mr. Horton is no longer living underground. He is serving time at the Mid-State Correctional Facility, a medium-security state prison in Marcy, N.Y. In March, shortly before his 40th birthday, he began serving a prison sentence of 18 to 36 months for criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree. He is eligible for parole in November and could be released as early as May. State records indicate that he was also in prison from 1990 to 1991 for attempted assault and from 1999 to 2003 for assault.

In the phone interview, Ms. Landowne acknowledged that her friendship and collaboration with Mr. Horton had had its ups and downs, but pointed out that his life has been filled with struggles against addiction and despair.

Mr. Horton was not available for a phone interview, but he wrote in a letter to his publisher: “I was real glad when I received my copy of the book. I thought that it came out real good. I want to thank you for the opportunity for giving me a chance to publish my book.”

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"Pitch Black" is $12.21 at Amazon.