Underground

  DAVE HILL/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff The famous tunnels
under UCLA connect the whole campus together. They conceal the
wires, pipes and controls that keep the university functioning
properly.

by Lily Jamali
Daily Bruin Contributor

Many students have heard about them. Some have ventured into
them. Others doubt if they even exist at all.

Beneath the lawns, fountains, and buildings of UCLA, there lies
a dingy, clammy mystery known to students simply as “the
tunnels.”

“Maybe the tunnels are one of those freshmen myths that
they tell you,” said Raquel Garza, a fourth-year classics
student. “When I was a freshman and sophomore, a lot of
people were talking about them.”

But Garza, like many students, is unsure of the purpose the
tunnels serve.

“What I heard was that they are in Murphy or something and
that they were put in during the ’60s,” said Garza, who
guessed that they might have been used as bomb shelters.
“That’s all I really heard.”

It’s finally time to set the record straight. The
underground tunnels at UCLA do in fact exist. They form an
extensive network that connects the entire campus, from Kerckhoff
to Murphy to Boelter Hall.

Within the tunnels lie the control rooms, pipes and wiring that
keep the university running from day to day. In the most ancient
parts, which are as old as 75 years, the tunnels are hot and
cramped.

The walls are lined with large metal pipes and hundreds of small
power lines. Some of these lines have been there so long that no
one knows what they are there for anymore.

But these claustrophobia-inducing tunnels contain an aspect of
UCLA history that students do not see on their freshmen orientation
tour, nor even during their time here for many.

John Sandbrook, assistant provost at the College of Letters and
Science, recounted a time 34 years ago when the tunnels were used
to sneak someone out of Royce Hall.

“Back in the 1960s, the head of the American Nazi Party
gave a speech in Royce Hall, but there were a lot of protesters
outside,” Sandbrook said of George Lincoln Rockwell’s
visit to UCLA in 1967, which drew 200 protesters to the walkway
between Royce and Powell.

“So for his sake, instead of taking him out of Royce Hall
through the quad, they took him out through the tunnel which they
used to walk him all the way to Murphy Hall,” said Sandbrook,
who once visited the tunnels with former Chancellor Charles E.
Young.

According to Sandbrook, who was assistant chancellor at the
time, one afternoon in the summer, after he and Young were done for
the day, they entered the tunnels at Murphy and walked through them
to Kerckhoff.

Sandbrook was reluctant to divulge the details of his adventure
with Young. He did, however, offer a word of warning.

“I remember thinking that the door should always be locked
because it wasn’t safe and you have to walk carefully,”
Sandbrook said, laughing.

Randy Cook, manager of utilities at Facilities Management, must
constantly be concerned about safety in the tunnels.

“The tunnels were originally put in not for pedestrian
traffic but for utility distribution,” Cook said. “The
builders sensed that when each one of the buildings came in, they
all needed steam, power, natural gas and telecommunications, and
that’s what they were installed for.”

Despite the safety issue at the tunnels next to Murphy Hall,
there is overwhelming evidence that students consistently make
their way into the tunnels. Graffiti designs on tunnel walls reveal
some of those student visits.

Different fraternity names and art designs have been
spray-painted along the large concrete beams that lie beneath the
bridge.

“We’ve had graffiti and damage and other things down
here,” Cook said. “Typically, at (fraternity) rush
times, kids come through and break all the bulbs.”

One popular rumor among students is that anyone caught in the
tunnels will be expelled. Joan Nelson, associate dean of students,
disagrees.

“I think it’s one of those urban legends,”
said Nelson, who said just being caught in the tunnels would
probably not warrant dismissal from the university. Suspension,
however, is a possibility Nelson would consider.

“If the door is locked and someone breaks in, then they
have violated university regulation,” Nelson said. Graffiti
or vandalism committed while in the tunnels would lead to greater
sanctions, according to Nelson.

Cook, of Facilities Management, has his own methods of dealing
with students looking to the tunnels for the rush of adventure.

“I have a hit man,” Cook said jokingly.

According to Cook, it would take up to a day to walk through the
whole tunnel system.

“You have to remember that it isn’t a tunnel,”
Cook said. “It’s a bunch of branches that come off the
central system.”

The tunnel system originates by Murphy under a bridge that used
to connect the campus to bring trucks and building supplies in for
construction. Inside the tunnel, one can still see the remnants of
a creek, part of a deep arroyo that used to exist before it was
filled in to create more building sites.

Today, the bridge lies underneath the road which connects Murphy
Hall to the original four buildings.

“You appreciate the fact that there is a lot of effort and
a lot of money that went into building the structure of the
campus,” Sandbrook said. “While the grounds are very
nice, like any modern city, there are a lot of things that go on
underneath the ground.”