New York tabloids in the 1980s were full of stories of "mole people" — squatters who inhabited empty subway tunnels in Manhattan. The deliberately sensational stories made the tunnel denizens seem dangerous and semi-human, but in reality most of them spent their days eating lentils and assembling pay-phone dialers from shoplifted Radio Shack parts. The popular film C.H.U.D. took it to the next level, depicting them as subterranean mutants who, after extended contact with radioactive waste (somehow present in the New York sewer system), developed a taste for human flesh. As with many things in life, however, the wildest imaginings of New Yorkers were nothing compared to the spontaneous weirdness of everyday life in Philadelphia. This was certainly true in the case of the El Dwellers, the strange cross-section of Philadelphians who staked claim to every station along the Market-Frankford El line between 40th Street and Second Street in the years after a failed attempt at privatization resulted in SEPTA's demise in the mid-21st century.

Suffice to say, by the mid 2060s, the once great tunnels and elevated tracks of the Market-Frankford and Broad Street lines were reduced to hulking, empty monuments to financial mismanagement. West of 46th Street, north of Spring Garden and north of Olney, the elevated rails cut foreboding outlines into the cityscape, particularly at night, when they were often set alight by local youths. Also a source of increasingly valuable scrap metal for the now-majority homeless population, the stations were best avoided by pedestrians, who often found themselves dodging falling hunks of concrete or fencing. The stairways leading to the underground stations, mostly located in Center City, were deemed less of a nuisance. At first.

Evan M. Lopez

Who were the earliest El Dwellers? Historians have had no more luck answering this question in retrospect than anthropologists did when the El Dwellers walked among them, or rather, below them. The general consensus, however, is that the first leader of the El Dwellers to gain public notoriety was Seamus Dougherty, the descendant of a long line of ethically inventive electricians who preached a gospel combining elements of Catholicism and Phanaticism — a "death cult" centered around a mysterious green, googly-eyed deity thought to have originated in the middle of the 20th century. Dougherty amassed a following of thousands when he successfully electrified the labyrinth of disused subway tunnels between Market East Station and City Hall. His first followers were, of course, the very poor and homeless, who already knew their way around the tunnels. They were followed in rapid succession by artists and musicians seeking cheap studio space; nonprofit and creative professionals; and, finally, young families.

Acceptance among the El Dwellers was an easygoing affair at first: Private property was to be respected, concourses and tracks were to be kept clean and free of obstruction, and one member of each household was to devote a reasonable amount of time each week to communal rat-hunting. Politically, the El-Dwellers were absolutist. All disputes were resolved by Dougherty, and serious infractions were punishable by banishment above ground to what was known derisively as "sinnercity" or "seesee."

This is not to say El Dwellers never emerged from the tunnels into the rapidly decaying streets of Philadelphia; on the contrary, they did so regularly to barter for (or steal) food, light bulbs, bits of cable, etc. Their eyes unused to sunlight, they generally did so at night, and within a few years they became, with their ratty cloaks (colored green, orange or blue, depending, traditionally, upon what platform they had taken up residence), legendary figures among the increasingly despondent surface population of the city. In some stories they appeared as heroes, emerging from the night to douse fires, kill giant rats, avenge the weak against the strong, etc. But more often they were fright-figures, used to scare children. "Don't play on K and A," a parent might tell a child, "or the El Dwellers will get you." And, in the difficult years of the 2060s, as unemployment and crime rose steadily, the El Dwellers became scapegoats for everything from communicable disease to potholes. Their association with petty theft did not help matters, but neither did it excuse the treatment meted out to El Dwellers unlucky enough to be caught above ground and alone by angry surface dwellers in the closing years of the 2060s.

Promises to "get tough" on El Dwellers and "clean up" the subway tunnels became regular features of local political campaigns. One inventive incumbent councilman even drafted legislation to reopen the Market-Frankford line, but was personally reprimanded by the state treasurer for doing so. The commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the councilman was reminded, had been legally bankrupt since liquidating the Department of Transportation a decade prior to finance an enormous water park in Central Pennsylvania. (In retrospect, it was not so much the business plan that was fatally flawed, but the choice of Centralia, Pa., as the location. A visiting Brazilian news team happened to have their cameras fixed on the Aquanaut, a 200-foot waterslide, when it burst into flames during the park's grand opening. The resulting international news coverage was unfavorable.)

In the mayoral election of 2071, the El Dwellers were one of the central issues. Distinct liberal and conservative positions emerged. Liberals argued that the social problems associated with El Dwellers could be mitigated through engagement and outreach, particularly with regards to health and education. "And besides," it was often heard argued in the piano bar at the White Dog, "they've really kept the rat population down." Conservatives argued that the El Dwellers were products of an overly permissive society, and that attempts to protect them were examples of political correctness run amok. "And besides," it was often heard argued over dinner at the Union League, "how would you like it if one of them moved in next door to you?" The absurdity of this statement was seldom remarked upon.

The brutal stock market crash of 2072, followed by a dramatic, if ill-advised, spike in real estate investment, ultimately resolved the matter. The tunnels, still technically city property, were sold in a closed bid to the ancient yet controversial real estate development fund, Blatstein and Fumo. Within months they had been converted into a glittering complex of condominiums and retail facilities complete with indoor golf course and an underground, artificial waterfall designed by a team of architects from Dubai. The El Dwellers were not so much forced out as pushed aside. "Shit," one of them remarked in the presence of a Daily Inquirer reporter upon seeing a construction crew hoist the Trader Joe's sign over what had previously been a communal rat crematorium. "There goes the neighborhood."

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