{"id":53217,"date":"2017-10-27T00:05:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T07:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=53217"},"modified":"2017-10-29T23:54:47","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T06:54:47","slug":"the-city-of-fright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/the-city-of-fright\/","title":{"rendered":"The City of Fright"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following is an article from Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

\"paris<\/a>If you think the streets of Paris are enchanting, wait till you discover what lurks below.<\/em><\/p>\n

THEY DUG PARIS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most visitors to Paris have no idea that beneath the City of Light is a dark labyrinth of branching tunnels and abandoned quarries. Paris sits atop massive limestone and gypsum formations that have been quarried for more than 1,000 years. The Romans chiseled the fine-grained limestone into bathhouses and sculptures. The French used it to build thousands of buildings, everything from Notre Dame cathedral and the Louvre Museum to Paris Police Headquarters. As for the gypsum, ever heard of plaster of Paris? That\u2019s where it comes from.<\/p>\n

When the mining started, the quarries were outside of town, but over the centuries the city spread and so did the quarries. Eventually Paris ended up with a 1,900-acre underground maze that starts about 15 feet below the streets and ends 120 feet underground. Parisians call the multi-level maze gruy\u00e8re (Swiss cheese), and that\u2019s exactly what a cross-section of the ground beneath their feet looks like.<\/p>\n

THAT SINKING FEELING<\/strong><\/p>\n

When an entire city ends up on holey ground, things get shaky. Residents got their first glimpse of how unstable their city had become in 1774, when one of the tunnels collapsed, gulping down houses and people along Rue d’Enfer (\u201cHell Street\u201d). Parisians panicked, so Louis XVI created the Inspection Generale des Carrieres (quarry inspectors) and appointed architect Charles-Axel Guillaumot as its first chief. He instructed Guillaumot to do three things: 1) find all the empty spaces under Paris, 2) make a map of them, and 3) reinforce any spaces below public streets or below buildings belonging to the king. Personally inspecting the sinkholes to a depth of more than 75 feet, Guillaumot was horrified by what he found and told Louis the truth: \u201cThe temples, palaces, houses, and public streets of several parts of Paris and its surrounding areas are about to sink into giant pits.\u201d<\/p>\n

MOLD LANG SYNE<\/strong><\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the only problem in Paris. Thanks to war, famine, and plague, the city\u2019s cemeteries were full to overflowing. One frosty February morning in 1780, a homeowner started down into his cellar but was immediately driven back upstairs by a terrible stench. Egged on by his neighbors (and wearing a vinegar-soaked handkerchief over his nose), he crept back down and found 20 decaying bodies, covered in graveyard mold, bursting through the wall. The graveyards had finally gone beyond their limits.<\/p>\n

But where others saw a problem, King Louis saw an opportunity. He closed the cemeteries and had the bones dug up and stacked into the quarries. Six million skeletons\u2014mounds and stacks of skulls and tibias, femurs and spines\u2014turned the chambers into catacombs, an underground boneyard that became known as \u201cThe Empire of the Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

CATS IN A MAZE<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Paris grew, the gruy\u00e8re got even more full of holes. Churches dug crypts. City engineers built aqueducts, sewers, water mains, and tunnels for M\u00e9tro lines. They dug conduits for telephone and electrical lines, bunkers for shelter during World War II, and garages for underground parking. And at the very bottom: the ancient quarries, their ceilings braced by nothing but limestone pillars and stacked stones.<\/p>\n

Of the 180 miles of tunnels maintained by the Inspection Generale des Carrieres (IGC), only one mile\u2014the catacombs\u2014is open to the public. That doesn\u2019t stop the cataphiles. After dark, these hardcore cavers scurry down drains and through ventilation shafts. They chisel open manhole covers and sneak through entrances in hospital basements, the cellars of bars, church crypts, and subway tunnels. Why? \u201cAt the surface there are too many rules,\u201d says one cataphile. \u201cHere we do what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

While preparing an article for National Geographic<\/em>, reporter Neil Shea got an inside look at what cataphiles do underground. Some carry scuba tanks for exploring and mapping abandoned wells. Some create art, such as a four-foot-high limestone castle complete with drawbridge, moat, towers, and even a little LEGO soldier guarding the gate. Others host events: An author and an illustrator staged a book signing for their graphic novel Le Diable Vert<\/em> (The Green Devil). A group of people held a banquet, their candelabra casting shadows across the stone table as they dipped into cheese fondue and listened to chamber music. With cataphiles scurrying through the gruy\u00e8re like mice, the city decided to hire another kind of cat to hunt them down.<\/p>\n

ON THE PURR-ROWL<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe deeply that the catacombs belong to us, and that no one has the right to take them away,\u201d says a longtime cataphile nicknamed Morthicia. The cataflics disagree. These special cops patrol the maze, chase offenders from their underground lairs, and hand out fines. That\u2019s business as usual…unless they stumble upon something unexpected.<\/p>\n

In 2004, during a training exercise 50 feet below the surface, officers moved a tarp marked \u201cBuilding site. No access.\u201d That triggered a tape recording of dogs barking. \u201cTo frighten people off,\u201d said an officer. Beyond the barking they found 3,000 square feet of subterranean galleries. In one gallery there was theater seating for 20 (carved into the rock), a full-size movie screen, and projection equipment, along with all kinds of films, from 1950s film noir classics to contemporary thrillers. In another room, they found tables and chairs, and a well-stocked bar. Three days later, they returned with an electrician to trace the wires being used to pirate power and phone service. But the galleries had been stripped; not a wire remained to offer a clue to the culprits. All that was left was a note in the middle of the floor: \u201cDo not try to find us.\u201d<\/p>\n

CHEESY PARISEE<\/strong><\/p>\n

A group calling itself \u201cThe Perforating Mexicans\u201d later claimed responsibility for the theater. \u201cThere are a dozen more where that one came from,\u201d said Patrick Saletta, a photographer who documents the urban underground. \u201cYou guys have no idea what\u2019s down there.\u201d Perhaps not, but here\u2019s something they do know: Inspector Guillaumot\u2019s 18th-century warning is still valid. In 1961 the maze swallowed an entire southside neighborhood. Small collapses happen every year, yet Parisians seem unconcerned. They have the IGC\u2014still vigilant more than 200 years after its founding\u2014to keep the City of Lights from falling into the gruy\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>This article is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s 24 Karat Gold Bathroom Reader<\/a><\/em>. The information miners at the Bathroom Readers\u2019 Institute have unearthed a priceless collection of surprising, amazing, headscratching, and hilarious articles. 24-Karat Gold is chock-full of little-known history, random origins, weird news, celebrity secrets, and urban legends.<\/p>\n

Since 1987, the Bathroom Readers\u2019 Institute<\/a> has led the movement to stand up for those who sit down and read in the bathroom (and everywhere else for that matter). With more than 15 million books in print, the Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader series is the longest-running, most popular series of its kind in the world.<\/p>\n

If you like Today I Found Out<\/a>, I guarantee you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books, so check them out<\/a>!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an article from Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader If you think the streets of Paris are enchanting, wait till you discover what lurks below. THEY DUG PARIS Most visitors to Paris have no idea that beneath the City of Light is a dark labyrinth of branching tunnels and abandoned quarries. Paris sits atop massive limestone and gypsum formations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":53218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-i-found-out","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53219,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53217\/revisions\/53219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}