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.”