2. Find the Manhattan Project’s Cyclotron in the Tunnels

If you’re a more adventurous sort, Pupin’s basement connects to the Columbia University tunnels. Though their presence is well known, few have ever explored their full extents. The tunnels are relics from Columbia’s days as the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, and they also connect to Buell Hall, the last remaining relic of the mental institution. Apparently, the cyclotron used to create the Manhattan Project’s nuclear arsenal is still down there somewhere.

During the 1968 student strike, WKCR students used the tunnels to tap into the university’s telephone system. The tunnels were also the location where much of the research for the Manhattan Project was completed and stored. Though it was removed in 2008, the old cyclotron, instrumental in developing nuclear technology and apparently still putting out gamma rays, allegedly still remains somewhere in the tunnels, a haunting relic of the past. Many of the tunnels have been closed since the 1980s, when a university student named Ken Hechtman founded a group called AD HOC that dedicated itself to causing trouble and infiltrating the tunnels. During the brief period when AD HOC existed, Hechtman and others stole uranium and other dangerous chemicals, and his antics had him named a campus legend. Hechtman was later expelled, but the intrigue of the tunnels has never faded.