brennan@columbia.edu (Joseph Brennan) wrote in message news:<bjag9e$g9k$1@konichiwa.cc.columbia.edu>...
> TdN <triannadunord@m> wrote:
> >The strange thing about that page is that it doesn't address the
> >photographs Margaret Morton took for that book, and for her more
> >complete "The Tunnel".
>
> The people who lived in the Riverside Park structure have been well
> documented, by Margaret Morton's book and by an occasional series of
> articles in the New York Times that eventually followed some of the
> people into their later lives outside the tunnel. These are what
> Toth's book should have been-- accurate, realistic, and focused on the
> real people and the circumstances that brought them into the tunnels.
>
> I did say, quote,
> The sections about life in the Riverside Park tunnel are supported
> in general by other accounts, and interestingly the descriptions of
> this one tunnel are also the most accurate
>
I guess as long as you were explaining how Toth was sold a jackalope,
I would have liked to have an explanation of what the Morton photos
actually depicted, and what the discrepancies were between that and
what the text purported them to illustrate.
>
>
> >I agree that Toth seems to be a sloppy journalist, too ready to
> >believe whatever her informants tell her, but it's as though Brennan
> >is ignoring the documentary photographs.
>
> I've seen Morton's photos of the Riverside Park structure, but not any
> of the seventh level under Grand Central, people with webbed feet,
> waiting rooms with fountains, the caverns of Manhattan, or the ESP
> rays the Mole People use to communicate (see Toth's last chapter!).
Well, everybody knows you can't *photograph* ESP rays (forbidden
winking smiley here to express tomfoolery).
And my husband has webbed feet (or at least a vestigial web between
his first and second toes). It's actually not all that uncommon.
I do admit that, even without knowing thing A about the NYC
subinfrastructure, I was possessed with an overwhelming desire to play
high-stakes poker with Ms. Toth after reading "The Mole People".
>
> I might be mistaken, but the photos were not in the first edition
> of Toth's book, were they?
>
Now, there you've got me. I came rather late to this party (Morton
first, then Toth), so my quibble with your page may be moot in that
case. But if you ever have a slow afternoon, perhaps you might think
of adding something about Morton's photos and how they were used to
illustrate Toth's book.
I'm disappointed about the fountains and chandeliers, of course. They
were so pretty in the "Superman" movie.
Yrs,
T "sic transit gloria transit" dN
"The Mole People" - Jennifer Toth - Documentary film? 
