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The Chicago Tunnels In Tunnel Vision, V.I. Warshawski ventures into a network of flooded tunnels underneath the Loop. According to a TV announcer in the novel, the tunnels are shrouded in mystery: "estimates [of their length] range from forty to eighty miles." [10] However, these tunnels are no figment of Paretsky's literary imagination. They actually exist beneath downtown Chicago. In fact, the tunnels are about 60 miles long in total, were opened for operation in 1906, and the small locomotives within them carried various types of goods to and from the buildings in the Loop. [11] They proved useful due to the crowded nature of a typical Chicago street in the first half of the 20th century, as companies could send and receive coal and mail without the hassle of moving it through the streets. [12] This is how business went in the Loop: the tunnels were out of sight and out of mind for the majority of the people on the surface. Eventually, due to factors such as businesses switching their power source to natural gas, the tunnels became unprofitable and the Chicago Tunnel Company went out of business in 1959. [13] From the picture on various websites (listed below), I can surmise that the tunnels are very similar in appearance to how Sara Paretsky describes them in Tunnel Vision. That is, dark and dangerous. One interesting thing did strike me, though. It appears that Paretsky's depiction of the tunnels as containing many rats may be incorrect. After the tunnels were abandoned, vermin had no way to sustain themselves, and thus, by the time of the 1992 flood, the tunnels were basically rat-free. [14] Even if rats were able to make their way into buildings (due to "false walls," like the one found in the Pulteney building) it does not seem logical that they would nest there.
If you wish to find more information on the tunnels underneath the Loop, you will likely find the following sites quite edifying:
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