Alanemmins.com

Two years ago, in New York City, I walked into a train tunnel with my friend, the photographer Michael Sofonski. We hopped up onto a small concrete wall and shimmied between two sections of fence. Once on the other side, we walked down a precariously placed plank of wood until we were back on somewhat uneven ground. We were working on an article about urban exploration - about the city explorers who explore abandoned buildings, bridges and tunnels. Three well experienced urbanites were taking us into this tunnel to show us some artwork that had been painted deep inside. But as soon as we jumped the fence a homeless man stepped out from his makeshift house and positioned himself in front of us.

Holding out his hand he said, 'Halt! Who goes there?'�

He was an elderly man. His hair was grey, as was the beard that came down to his belly. He was also slim, which reduced the garden gnome quality that the beard, rosy cheeks and green fishing hat lent him.

We explained that we were going to look at the murals on the tunnel walls. 'People live in there,'� he told us. 'Don't touch anything.'� Then, as we shuffled away, he called out, 'But enjoy the art. It's very good!'�

He was an edgy character with a touch of menace in his voice. His twitching and fidgeting gave the impression that he could change his emotional standpoint at any time. He represented the stereotype of what the homeless man is: dirty, smelly, a little crazy and living in a shack put together of society's discarded matter.

We walked on through a landscape polka-dotted with the tennis balls that had made their way over from the nearby tennis court. Our eyes were drawn to the odd rat, the drip, drip of water from above and the darkness that loomed ahead of us. We were alert and nervous.

But then, just before the darkness, caught in the light that poured in from the grates in the highway above, was a pirouetting figure.

Something altogether less obvious.

We moved nearer and, as we did, a young girl came into view. Her long black hair was tied with a piece of gold lamé. At her feet, you couldn't help but notice, was a dance floor.

The tunnel floor was uneven earth. It was rutted and scattered with odd bricks, broken buckets, odd shoes, hats, wires, shopping carts and tyres. The dance floor, roughly twenty feet by twenty feet, was made of plywood. And there she danced - in a train tunnel, on a dance floor.

Michael and I were no longer focussed on our urban exploration story. Our minds were with this dancing girl. Who was she? Where did she come from? Why was she dancing in the tunnel?

As we passed her I cut away from the group and approached her.

As unassumingly as I could I said, 'Excuse me? I'm sorry to bother you...'�

She stopped dancing and gave me a hard stare as the music, playing slowly due to the flat batteries in her portable stereo, whined on in the background. Her full lips were compressed, not in a pout but in determination, as a show of strength.

'What is it?'� she asked with an unmistakeable French accent and attitude.

'We were just going into the tunnel to look at the murals. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions on the way out?'�

'No. I am leaving now; I will not be here when you come out.'�

With that she picked up her little portable stereo and walked away. She had however answered one of my questions at least.

She was French. She was a French girl dancing in a train tunnel in New York City, with a homemade dance floor beneath her feet.

I walked back and joined Michael and the urban explorers.

Michael asked eagerly, 'What did she say? Did she say anything?'�

'Yes,'� I told him. 'She said she was leaving.'�

Further into the tunnel we stood in front of the murals, each around three meters high. They ran connected, in a long line like a cartoon strip, maybe forty metres in total, although there was no direct theme or relation between one and the next. The murals were placed in the tunnel, known thereafter as the 'Freedom Tunnel', by artists 'Freedom' Chris, Smith and Sane. In one mural an angular faced man in a beige rain mac, held the wrists of an invisible somebody who was holding a gun, and saying, by way of a speech bubble, 'DROP THE GUN MOLE!' While his would-be attacker, in a cowardly grimace, says simply 'AK!' This scene ran into the next frame, a title frame that stated: 'There's no way like the American way.' Another frame is styled after the branding for Coca Cola, but only shows half the logo, the 'Coca' half. But the really powerful image is of red and white horizontal stripes, over which is written the text, 'In December 1995 the forgotten men of the tunnel received city housing. They've just begun to move.'

One of the things that made these murals so special is that the only people that got to enjoy them were the few remaining homeless living in the tunnel and the urban explorers who were brave enough to risk the unknown and the third rail to come here to see them. It was a very personal exhibition, but while Michael and I felt honoured to be taken there, our minds kept drifting elsewhere.

She was French and she had a dance floor beneath her feet.

As we left the tunnel we stopped in a sectioned off area that looked as if it was once a platform. It was about sixty metres long and consisted mostly of rubble. The spaces between the pillars were piled high with debris, apart from in one section where there were five televisions, a radio and a dining table. Looking cautiously over our shoulders we went to investigate, making sure not to touch anything.

On one shelf there was a saltshaker and a bottle of ketchup.

We quickly moved on. We were, after all, in somebody's home. There was no sign of the French girl as we ambled, past the dance floor, not really wanting to leave, but we did see, sitting in a chair with another man, the Guardian Gnome who had accosted us upon entry.

'Did you like the murals?'� asked the man that we hadn't seen before, letting us know that they had been talking about us. Or was it something else?

'Yeah I saw you in there. You went into my house, and I was watching you.'�

'We didn't touch anything!'� we all sang in unison.

'I know you didn't,'� he said taking swig from a bottle. 'Like I said - I was watching you.'�

Unlike Michael and myself, the urban explorers knew what they were talking about. They stood chatting about the history of the tunnel and the artists who had painted the murals with the two homeless men.

When the opportunity arose I asked, 'Do you know the girl who was here dancing earlier?'�

The man, who had introduced himself as JR, was grinning, 'Yeah,'� he said.

'Who is she?'�

'That's my girlfriend, V.'�

'V?'�

'Yeah, V.'�

I didn't want to push him for more information about V, but the fact that she went by a single letter just intrigued me more. What is this V for? Veronica? Valerie? Vera? When we left, I asked the two men if it would be OK to come back and talk to them another day.

They said, 'Sure, just don't go poking your noses into people's homes without an invitation.'�

We said, 'No, no, no, we wouldn't do that,'� even though, in reality, we already had.

Three days later Michael and I ventured back into the tunnel. We knew what we wanted; we were journalists and we thought we had stumbled into what could be the most intriguing, beautiful and untold story of our careers thus far.

And in the distance, bathed in the light that poured in through the grated highway above'� There she was.

She wasn't as cold as before: 'Ah, it is you again?'�

'Yes, it is us again.'�

'I do not want to do'� what is it, a speak with you. I know nothing of the paintings inside, so I do not know why you come back here:'�

'We came to see your boyfriend.'�

'He invite you here?'�

'Well, yes.'�

'Well he is not here. But maybe he come back soon, it is up to you if you will wait for him.'�

'OK, we'll wait if that's OK with you?'�

'I do not care.'�

'How long have you been dancing?'� I asked.

Not wanting to talk to us she said, 'I don't know.'� Then, feeling rude, she said, 'Maybe'�'� Then, remembering she was French, said, 'I don't know.'�

'My wife is a dancer too.'� I mentioned my wife only to try to help her relax, as if by having a wife I had already been accepted by the female fraternity and that she could now feel safe. It was a stupid notion, but she did brighten at the mention of another dancer.

'She is a dancer? Here? In New York?'�

Now I couldn't get V to be quiet if I wanted to. She kept firing dance questions at me, questions I didn't have the knowledge to answer, though this didn't seem to worry V.

JR never arrived and, not wanting to push our luck by telling V that we would like to write a story about her, we left and said that we would drop by again in a few days.

'Maybe I could take some pictures of you next time?'� Michael asked as we said goodbye.

'Yes, this will be OK, but you must bring batteries for my radio.'� She showed us her radio and opened the battery compartment so that we could see which kind of battery was needed.

The next time we visited V we were armed with batteries and a dance magazine that my wife had brought back from one of her classes. V looked happy to see us and when Michael handed her the batteries she could barely contain her excitement. She tore at the packaging.

V danced for an hour that afternoon while Michael photographed her.

We returned a few days later and met V and her boyfriend. Michael gave them some prints from his shoot. Eventually we asked V and JR if we might write a story about them, about the French ballet dancer who lives in the tunnel. They thought it was interesting, but weren't overly enthused.

Then V said, 'But if you really want to write about homelessness, you need to come and live with us for a while. You can't write about it properly without trying it.'�

That was the summer of 2002. A few days after that last conversation I returned to Europe via San Francisco, vowing to return to New York to do the story very soon. But the day I flew to California my wife told me she was pregnant. It wouldn't have been right to live on the streets of New York while my wife was pregnant with our first child. We returned to Europe and the story was shelved indefinitely.

It was a great regret that I never went back to write that story. V was always at the back of my mind. Whenever I read something about the homeless, some stereotypical portrayal of a thieving crack addict capable of eating a child or a rat in ten seconds flat, I would get annoyed - annoyed because I had had a chance to show that the homeless don't all eat babies, the homeless are not all doped out and trying to rob passers-by. There was another side to homelessness. I believed there was a story where those sensational headlines could be replaced with beauty, character and honesty. V was always there, pirouetting in my mind as a reminder that I could have demonstrated this. The more I read accounts of the 'mole people' scurrying about in tunnels after a rat supper, the more angry I got that I hadn't written the story about V. I found myself pacing around my living room, outraged, until it occurred to me: there was nothing stopping me from actually going and writing the story. It would be worth it just to quell my indignation.

My wife wasn't immediately taken with the idea.

'Couldn't you do something else?'� she asked, and listed off a few of the other ideas I had been toying with. But as we spoke about the homeless project I became more animated by it. I simply had to do it.

My plan was to document, as plainly as possible, the lives of the homeless people of New York City. Not just where they slept and where they ate, but who they were. I wanted to meet the personalities behind the cardboard signs and I knew I would fail if I clocked off at six and went home for dinner. I knew too that if I had money and bought stories with cigarettes, food and drink, people would basically tell me anything they thought I wanted to hear. I would get nothing but mythology and drama.

I set myself some rules: I would not try to explain or judge or analyse. I didn't want to delve into anyone's background. People would tell me what they wanted to tell me and I would reproduce the information as I received it. I also decided that I would tell everybody I met that I was a journalist and that I was writing a book about homelessness. This was a simple decision: I couldn't just steal their characters. I decided that I would start this project with $10 in my pocket. I didn't know how long it would take to adjust, how I would raise money or gather food. This $10 would allow me a short transition period while I found my bearings, but once it was gone I was on my own.

I also had to allow for some practical measures. My wife agreed to me undertaking the project on the condition that I call in every five days or so to let her and my daughter know that I was alive and well, so I allowed myself a $20 phone card. I also needed some kind of safety net, in case I got hurt or arrested, so I dropped my passport and my Visa card at the office of a friend in case of emergency. That was basically it: my rules.

Once I got out there I realised pretty quickly that I would not be making all the decisions about how this book would be written. Many characters insisted on giving me their background information whether I asked for it or not. Sometimes background is all they gave me.

'Oh you're a journalist, what do you want to know? Ask me anything.'�

'Well actually I'm not really'�'�

'I been homeless for'�'� and out would pour long, ranting spews of dialogue that couldn't be interrupted. Often the dialogues were random and messy, jabbing at my brain as I tried to make sense of the meaning and the rhythm. They threw me off guard and took me completely out of my comfort zone but still they managed to be beautiful and incredible and intriguing.

My days and movements were mixed. On some I would find myself marching up and down town, across and back and forth all day long, tiring myself but needing to chase food or make it to soup kitchens on time. The areas I spent most of my time were Union Square, Penn Station and the Upper Westside from Westside Park to Central Park. Other days due to sore feet, tiredness or slight depression I would just sit in parks, watching other people live their lives and wondering what my own family were doing at that moment. But the nature of the characters I met and their bearing on my behaviour led to a very nomadic experience. At first I used them as shelter, barely brave enough to leave their side. Eventually, as I grew more accustomed to sleeping on the streets, I would branch off on my own. But I wasn't prepared for the solitude of life on the streets and very quickly I found myself missing not just particular characters, but general and friendly contact. A meaningless chinwag was what I often sought and without the option to call and ask, 'Hey, how's it going?'� I would find myself marching in their direction. Desperate as I often was just to talk, to hear my own voice

When I embarked on this project I was hoping that I might find V, and with her in mind I stepped off the bus at Port Authority in midtown New York in the midsummer of 2004. Inside my rucksack I had two pairs of clean socks, two pairs of clean boxer shorts, one clean T-shirt, a can of deodorant, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a large scrapbook and a pen and pencil.

I stood for a minute or two on the busy sidewalk of 8th Avenue with the Port Authority Bus Terminal looming over me. I looked around at all the madness: that melting pot of race, temperament and attitude. I watched large crowds scurry like ants over the crossings, daring the cars to mess with them. I soaked in all the noise, the different voices, the smells, the cars driving over metal gratings, the taxis honking. This was to be my home for the next thirty-one days; a city where the people actually are larger than the gargantuan buildings that fail to pen them in.

With the sun raising a sweat on my brow I fell instantly into a blinding, shaking panic.

What on earth did I think I was doing?

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