Thousands of people live in the subway, railroad, and sewage tunnels that form the bowels of New York City. This book is about them, the so-called ...
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Dec 13, 2009
karen
rated it: 
oh, jennifer toth, you annoy the shit out of me.
how can you take a topic about the homeless of new york city, the fascinating subject of ingenuity and survival skills and people living in highly-organized communities off the grid underground and somehow make the story all about you? you!! some sheltered white girl who uses (and defines -DEFINES!)the word "dissed" like a new toy, traipsing underground like some little red riding hood into the big scary tunnels and chirping a More...
how can you take a topic about the homeless of new york city, the fascinating subject of ingenuity and survival skills and people living in highly-organized communities off the grid underground and somehow make the story all about you? you!! some sheltered white girl who uses (and defines -DEFINES!)the word "dissed" like a new toy, traipsing underground like some little red riding hood into the big scary tunnels and chirping a More...
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Jan 31, 2008
Erin
rated it: 
Not very well-written, but I always say that about journalistic style (Hey journalism people: if even analytic philosophers can learn how to write well, why can't you? Cue defensive references to New Yorker and Harpers' journalists, to which I say, "Duh"). Oh, back to the book: the mole people are interesting, but don't expect Ms. Toth to reveal much about them that you don't already know, or can imagine. She was very naive when she was doing her research (entering the tunnels alone
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Jul 05, 2007
Sonanova
rated it:
Well, there were certainly some problems with this book. Initially, it was billed as an ethnography of NY streetpeople, but just looking at reviews before I touched it raised red flags for me. It is certainly not an ethnography.
There are a few chapters which deal with the historical background of underground dwellings and people. It also tries to use an ethnographic formula in the structure of it's chapters. Portraits of the people blend with very lush and most likely fictive d More...
There are a few chapters which deal with the historical background of underground dwellings and people. It also tries to use an ethnographic formula in the structure of it's chapters. Portraits of the people blend with very lush and most likely fictive d More...
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Dec 17, 2009
Antisocialite
rated it:
I'm having a hard time rating this book, even weeks after finishing it. I don't even know what it is that has me so conflicted: it's well-researched and required great personal risks by the author (Jennifer Toth was only 24 when she wrote it, and climbing around the tunnels under New York, talking to criminals, murderers, drug addicts and the insane). But some of the chapters, particularly one devoted to the literary tradition of the underground, felt absurdly academic in the middle of all the r
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Aug 18, 2007
oriana
rated it:
This book was really disappointing for me, because the subject matter is fascinating, but the writing was just shudderingly bad. I am still shocked that I couldn't finish it, because I was really, really amazed by what I was learning, but I just couldn't keep focused. I would love to see this book edited and re-released, in a more engaging, readable version.
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Jan 31, 2011
Katie
rated it:
Definitely an interesting topic---who knew that there were/are upwards of 6,000 tunnel dwellers living beneath my feet under the sidewalks of New York?---but a more skilled writer/editor would have done a better job.
The biggest problem is Toth fell short of effectively capturing THE most gripping quality of her subject. Her selected quotations and scene depictions were pretty weak, so I didn't FEEL I was in the tunnel, I didn't smell it or see (or not see, as the case may be) it throu More...
The biggest problem is Toth fell short of effectively capturing THE most gripping quality of her subject. Her selected quotations and scene depictions were pretty weak, so I didn't FEEL I was in the tunnel, I didn't smell it or see (or not see, as the case may be) it throu More...
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Dec 11, 2008
Abby
rated it:
That the subject matter of this book was interesting outside of anything the author said was the only thing that saved it I think. She did a pretty poor job of enlightening the aboveground world to the plight of the underground homeless in new york city. Mostly she strung together superficial sketches of characters in these supposedly vast and complex communities. She seemed to be shooting for ethnography but ended up sounding more like a 12-year old girl keeping a diary: "Today I went into
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Mar 24, 2007
Leonora of
rated it:
Just a couple of quick notes about this book:
It was intriguing, written with the right balance of emotion and objectivity. I think everyone who lives in New York should read about the life that goes on beneath our streets. I wonder, since the book was written in 1993, whether it has changed much. I suspect it has. There are many descriptions of drug-addicted homeless people from the Upper West Side.
The author was brave, not only because she physically put herself in dang More...
It was intriguing, written with the right balance of emotion and objectivity. I think everyone who lives in New York should read about the life that goes on beneath our streets. I wonder, since the book was written in 1993, whether it has changed much. I suspect it has. There are many descriptions of drug-addicted homeless people from the Upper West Side.
The author was brave, not only because she physically put herself in dang More...
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Dec 16, 2009
michelle
rated it:
read this for a foundational Sociology class, Principles of Social Organization, or as i liked to call it, POSO. i read a lot of books for sociology classes that i absolutely loved, but i have to say this is not one of them. although it is truly bizarre, and fascinating in that can't-stop-watching-the-train-wreck way, and sometimes downright chilling (at one point the author is down in the underground, in pitch blackness, and she can just feel someone looking at her), i found the text pretty r
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Oct 11, 2007
Ami
rated it:
DUDE. Ridiculous. The book barely reads as true to begin with, and then when I went online there were pages and pages debunking her stories. I suppose the argument is that Jennifer is reporting the world of these underground homeless as it was told to her, making her job simply to report rather than evaluate. But if that's the device at use here, it doesn't work at all.
It's disappointing, because the author clearly spent some serious time in the company of the homeless and made incr More...
It's disappointing, because the author clearly spent some serious time in the company of the homeless and made incr More...
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Aug 03, 2011
A stunning and horrifying reality of life in the underground belly of NYC. This book was written in the early 90's and I can only imagine how many people live in tunnels now.
Toth gives an expose to the NYC underground homeless much like Upton Sinclair exposed the meat industry or Ida Tarbell of oil practices. She is truly a muckraker for our modern times. Toth exposes the life of addicts, street gangs, runaways, and people who live on the fringes of society, but choose to opt out of society. More...
Toth gives an expose to the NYC underground homeless much like Upton Sinclair exposed the meat industry or Ida Tarbell of oil practices. She is truly a muckraker for our modern times. Toth exposes the life of addicts, street gangs, runaways, and people who live on the fringes of society, but choose to opt out of society. More...
Mar 30, 2009
Margot
rated it:
In The Mole People, Jennifer Toth's stated goal is "to dismiss the myth of animal-like underground dwellers."(x) Her journalistic approach to telling the stories of New York's underground homeless population includes a bit of statistical reports and cultural & historical context among the personal tales of life in the train and subway tunnels. As she gets to know the members of this invisible population, Toth examines her own cultural lens and judgments as an educated woman with white
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Dec 04, 2008
Eric_W
rated it: 
I read a book some time ago about underground New York: the vast networks of cables, tunnels, sewers, caverns, old roads, (even complete old sailing ships) that have been found under the city's streets. Well, it turns out there's a whole population of people that live in these subterranean places. They are called "mole people," and young reporter Jennifer Toth got to know many of them during a year she spent seeking and interviewing them out.
In her introduction she says tha More...
In her introduction she says tha More...
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Jan 28, 2012
Elizabeth
rated it: 
When I read RELIQUARY, a novel in which a prehistoric monster was terrorizing the tunnels under New York City, I noticed in the author's notes that her reference to an entire underground society in the New York City tunnels was absolutely based on truth. She suggested that anyone interested might read this book, THE MOLE PEOPLE: Life in the Tunnels.
Jennifer Toth is a journalist and author who earned the trust and cooperation of street people and New York police alike to gain unimagina More...
Jennifer Toth is a journalist and author who earned the trust and cooperation of street people and New York police alike to gain unimagina More...
Aug 05, 2011
Alec
rated it:
The Mole People is a fascinating dive into the stories of homeless people and populations in New York City. Through a collection of vignettes, Toth paints a picture of a troubled people--slighted by society, some accepting of their position and others not so much--who simply want to retreat to a place where they feel comfortable to exist.
The book is written like a journalist's report, and hints at times that pieces were taken to be published in another medium. This is obvious through More...
The book is written like a journalist's report, and hints at times that pieces were taken to be published in another medium. This is obvious through More...
Jul 27, 2011
Stuart
rated it:
An interesting book about the people who live underneath New York City, in tunnels and caverns under stations. I enjoyed it quite a lot, due principally to the amazing stories of how people live underground, sometimes for years. Also, the author seemed to really be taking her life in her hands while doing the research, and so deserves a lot of respect. The so-called 'mole people' turn out to be many and varied, not a homogenous group; they have many reasons for moving to the tunnels and for sta
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May 21, 2011
Laura
rated it:
I am once again blown away by the efforts of a journalist to compile a story. Through the whole book, I struggled with whether I was more impressed by her guts or her stupidity. Particularly with how it all played out in the end, it is frightening how fragile her safety was in conducting her research on the underground homeless. The unfortunate thing is that for all her immersion in the underground world, so little of it really made it to the page. The book is essentially a series of text sn
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Sep 27, 2010
Heather
rated it:
One cold winter in an old Victorian house in small town in Western MA I was romanced by this story of sub culture and counter culture: the coolest of the cool, the ultimate outsiders, the ostracized, the mentally ill, the idealists living underneath the streets in the defunct portions of the NYC subway system. Reading like a cross between a sociology study and a fictional account of the Island of Misfit Toys, this book was just right to intrigue my intellect and my imagination.
Furthe More...
Furthe More...
Apr 12, 2010
Ben
rated it:
Good authors can make even the most mundane subjects interesting. In fact, sometimes it's the author's attention to minute details that makes for an interesting read. Jennifer Toth's book, "The Mole People", explores the interesting world of homeless people that populate the subway tunnels under New York City. Unfortunately, the author's uneven writing style subtracts from the intriguing subject-matter. Toth's overuse and repetition of adjectives renders her writing amateurish and
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Jan 10, 2010
Nycdreamin
rated it:
A great book about the so-called "Mole People" of late-1980's era New York City who, for various reasons, finding themselves homeless, found a home in the subway tunnels beneath the city.
I read this book, fascinated with it's gripping tales of urban survival and later found out that there is much controversy surrounding the book and it's author, Jennifer Toth. It seems that the book, according to some, is filled with several factual innacuracies which call into question man More...
I read this book, fascinated with it's gripping tales of urban survival and later found out that there is much controversy surrounding the book and it's author, Jennifer Toth. It seems that the book, according to some, is filled with several factual innacuracies which call into question man More...
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Dec 13, 2009
Heather
rated it:
A story about the people that live underground in the tunnels primarily below New York City. It was surprising to learn about a community of people that live underground, some that almost never come aboveground. An interesting point the author made was that most "above ground" homeless consider themselves a higher class of homeless than the "below ground" or "Mole People" homeless. In fact, the term "Mole People" is considered a derogatory term by the be
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Jun 20, 2009
Sonia
rated it: 
I know this site is called "goodreads" but I just had to put this on here just so I could warn hopeful readers NOT TO READ THIS BOOK. This is quite possibly - actually no - this is DEFINITELY the WORST book I have ever read, BY FAR. Whoever published it should seriously be ashamed. I was interested in reading something about the homeless population in NYC since I've been living here and I see them so often. So I picked this book up a few weeks ago. I could tell from the first couple pa
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May 26, 2009
Allison
rated it:
This is definitely one of the most fascinating non-fiction topics I have read about in a long time. Perhaps I am particularly vulnerable to this subject because I live in NYC and therefore spend a significant portion of my time riding public transit and passing homeless people, but this book opened up an entirely new window to me not only in terms of the possibility of people living in the subway tunnels under NYC (which I had never before fathomed), but also in terms of my views of homeless pe
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Nov 19, 2011
Claudia
rated it:
I will use Jennifer Toth's own final words from the epilogue: "I offer this work as research into this tragedy of our times, notes for the present and future, to prevent more souls from being lost to the tunnels, and perhaps to stir more hope in bringing them back home."
Written in 1993, one can only wonder how the underground subway population has grown in the last 18 years.
Jennifer Toth, while finishing her Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia, immersed More...
Written in 1993, one can only wonder how the underground subway population has grown in the last 18 years.
Jennifer Toth, while finishing her Master's degree in Journalism from Columbia, immersed More...
Dec 17, 2009
Judah
rated it:
An interesting book which I finally found after hearing a review on NPR more than ten years ago. A bit depressing at times, since you are reading about homeless folks (though some in the book *are* living that way by choice) which means that there is an element of mental illness/violence/addiction/etc to some of their stories. Still a rather intriguing look at how people create societies when they are "removed" from mainstream culture and it's allowances.
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Nov 18, 2009
Heather
rated it:
I would give this book 2.5 stars, if I could.
It's an interesting read & the author is a good writer. You are brought right into the darkness and unease of the plight of these people.
However, I think Ms. Toth was a bit gullible in her work. I've worked with enough drug addicts and convicts to know that you can't believe everything they say. Do I disbelieve everything she wrote? No. I'm sure a lot of what she says about these people is true. But I'm also sure that the More...
It's an interesting read & the author is a good writer. You are brought right into the darkness and unease of the plight of these people.
However, I think Ms. Toth was a bit gullible in her work. I've worked with enough drug addicts and convicts to know that you can't believe everything they say. Do I disbelieve everything she wrote? No. I'm sure a lot of what she says about these people is true. But I'm also sure that the More...
Jan 09, 2012
Alma
rated it:
Author, Jennifer Toth, embarked upon the bravest adventure of her life when she decided to research homeless people who lived in tunnels under NYC during the early 1990's. The book is filled with a wealth of personal stories from those who lived on the subway level to those seven stories below the city. Along with their experiences, trials, triumphs, fears, and sorrows, these so-called "mole people" showed the readers they are humans, not animals, as they had often been called in the p
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Aug 05, 2011
Colin N.
rated it:
"Mole People" is quite an impressive piece of journalism. Toth provides an thoroughly investigated and exhaustive account of the networks of homeless people living in the subways and train tunnels beneath NYC in the earlier 90s. At that time (and no doubt many remain today) this homeless population numbered in the thousands(!) and included a diverse range of people. These stories are truly fascinating. Each chapter functions almost as a stand-alone article on different aspects of t
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May 07, 2010
Sarah
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Before I read Mole People, I read this article by Joseph Brennan who has written about abandoned subway stations, in which he states that "every fact in this book that I can verify independently is wrong": http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandon... So I'll admit that I brought a skeptical attitude to this book, but many of the author's assertions seemed like fantasies to me. Random homeless people recognizing her on the street and giving her secret warnings? A gang of teenage contract
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Jul 06, 2007
Sarah
rated it:
Toth is an incredible writer and sociologist. She spent several years studying the homeless population living in the subway tunnels in NYC. It was interesting to read about this particular population, however I also found it a bit disturbing. Reading this book was a great learning experience, but be prepared for something a bit on the bleak side.
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