Many of my Minneapolis-based globetrotting friends who love the subway systems in other major cities around the world—NYC, Paris, London, DC, Tokyo, just to name a few—have often asked me why we don’t have a similar setup here at home. We’ve got two light rail lines and a fleet of buses that commute city-dwellers and suburbanites to and from work and shopping on a daily basis, but anyone who’s tried to get around solely on public transportation knows that the existing systems are woefully inadequate given the number of places the average person travels. So why can’t we keep up with other metropolises of similar size and build a subway system? The answer is that we can’t—because the very ground on which we walk is carious with limestone caverns.
A few intrepid urban spelunkers manage to get down into the caverns every year—and if you know the right people with the right set of keys, you could manage to get down there yourself…assuming you’re willing to accept the risk of being swept away by a river of raw sewage on the way there or becoming violently ill by inhaling bacteria. The largest, Schieks Cave, as it’s currently known, runs right under Fourth Street in downtown Minneapolis, beneath the gentlemen’s club after which it’s named. And you can get at least a mental picture of this stone cathedral the size of a city block by reading this blog. Local author and urban spelunker Greg Brick has journeyed into the bowels of the earth beneath Minneapolis, St. Paul, and other Midwestern cities, and has waded through the muck in search of this well-kept secret so that you don’t have to.
Personally, I love the idea of hurtling through a plexiglass subway tunnel surrounded by theatrically-lit stalactites and stalagmites, but I know others, especially anyone who’s seen one of those abysmal cave horror movies, might feel a bit differently than I do…