Gentle reader,
The video embedded in this post is documentation of one of the most unhinged guided tour experiences we’ve ever orchestrated: after years of dogged, patient inquiries with the attached apartment building’s management, in June 2017 we were granted permission to take a group of people into the historic Subway Terminal Building ticket concourse and the subway tunnel itself!
If there’s a holy grail of urban exploration in Los Angeles, it’s this decommissioned Pacific Electric Red Car streetcar station and tunnel tucked under an office building converted to apartments, with its constant burbling of groundwater seep managed by electric pumps and its vast arch vanishing into darkness.
Once it sunk in that we were really going to be allowed to share this remarkable subterranean landmark with an audience, we had a tough decision to make.
What should the ticket price be for what might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
The answer turned out to be nothing. Having been lucky enough to get inside the concourse and tunnel several times, we agreed that the experience was priceless, and one we wanted to give every interested Angeleno an equal chance to enjoy.
So we announced the tour as part of the free series of LAVA Sunday Salons and walks that had started out at the old Clifton’s Cafeteria, then moved to Les Noces Du Figaro, before taking over the basement of Grand Central Market after each of those Downtown venues shuttered.
Videos of these programs are posted here.
We announced the tour and watched it reach capacity in hours. Then came the calls and emails and in-person entreaties: please could we squeeze one more person in? You see, it was their dream to get into the tunnel.
It was everybody’s dream. The waiting list grew to 1000 names long. We’d never seen anything like it.
The video includes a brief LAVA Sunday Salon, in which downtown historian Nathan Marsak (nice tie!) let us know what to look for in the terminal and Richard explained how the Bonaventure Hotel’s footings severed the tunnel in 1976.
Plus, Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison previewed his own Sunday Salon about his lost Victorian neighborhood and the short-lived Second Street Cable Car Rail Road.
Then, after strapping on headlamps and double-knotting boots, our eager group trekked a block and a half down Hill Street for a rare visit to the historic passenger concourse, train platform, offices and yes, that remarkable decommissioned tunnel, complete with a growing collection of stalactites and stalagmites!
The tour was great fun, but stressful, as we tried to look after dozens of eager explorers running off in all directions in a dark, muddy, industrial space. And once it was over, we were pretty sure it would never happen again.
A year after our tour, the long vacant basement concourse was sold to City Storage Systems, parent company of CloudKitchens.
In August 2020, CloudKitchens’ reps presented to the Cultural Heritage Commission to get feedback on plans to remodel the long vacant concourse into a subterranean food court. Because the space is a city landmark and on the National Register, any proposed remodel is subject to more stringent review. You can hear the audio or read the transcript and see the slideshow here.
During that hearing, commissioners critiqued the proposed design, with Richard Barron taking particular issue with the clunky placement of food service kiosks under the skylights, instead of letting customers sit there.
After hearing from members of the public, including our Richard Schave, expressing concern that historic ghost signs and other character defining features be protected, Barron also objected to the “sterile whiteness” of the design, which evoked the work of post-modern architect Richard Meier rather than an early 20th century transit station.
Several years passed with no further news about the proposed food court project. But there has been news about CloudKitchens, much of it troubling. This thread on the subreddit /r/restaurant is full of unhappy tenants of their “ghost kitchens,” and a class action and gender discrimination suit have been filed.
In August 2023 we observed restoration work happening in the entryway and front of the space, and obtained these plans for rehabilitating the historic space that had been submitted to the city. It appeared City Storage Systems had abandoned the food court concept, and was cleaning the space up in hopes of attracting a commercial tenant.
So why recirculate the video of a one-off tunnel tour that you can’t take?
Because the Subway Terminal and its two basement floors are now on the market!
That means someone can buy their very own old Los Angeles subway station, 144,214 square feet of unique, commercial condominium space, to do with as they wish—so long as the Cultural Heritage Commission approves. That means keep it a little funky, and don’t make everything white and shiny.
As for the tunnel, while it’s contiguous with the old train platform space, it belongs to the city. But maybe Los Angeles would be willing to entertain a long-term lease for the right price, and the tunnel of dreams can become a public space again.
There’s just one wrench in the works of this intriguing idea: City Storage Systems is now suing Brookfield, owner of the surface level and tower rental units in the Subway Terminal Building, alleging failure to remediate water damage, mold, weird smells and pooling water behind brick walls.
This seems a strange thing to sue over. Did CSS not walk through the basements before they bought them? The Subway Terminal basements were damp when the tunnel was dug a century ago, and they were damp when we took that memorable walk back through time in 2017, carefully avoiding falling into the holes where the pumps were chugging away.
You don’t need to be licensed engineer or architect to know that there are serious moisture issues in this underground landmark. And in fact, this part of Los Angeles has always been swampy, which is why the undesirable Pershing Square parcel was dedicated as a public park in the first place.
But as Richard said around 34 minutes into the 2017 tour video, the ideal tenant for this unique and challenging space is a cultural institution like LACMA, which can program the historic concourse and tunnel with performances and installations. It’s far too dank and far too cool to be a taco stand, but it can be something very special.
Maybe you will be the visionary to make that happen! Price on request.
Our tours this weekend are a Downtown L.A. double feature, both packed with offbeat lore and unexpected connections. On Saturday, we’re taking advantage of the planned evening street closure for the city’s free cultural festival Broadway Night Lights to explore the length of the National Register Historic Theatre District with the Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess tour.
And Sunday, it’s The Run, which investigates LGBTQ+ cultural history through underground speakeasies, literary touchstones and bold legal battles in the dark years when homosexuality was criminalized, to learn how local activists used humor, guts and reverse psychology to take on the political and medical establishment and change the world. Join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sat. 10/12) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sat. 11/2) • The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times Walking Tour with Detective Mike Digby (Sat. 11/9) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 11/16) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 11/23) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 12/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 12/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/22) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26)
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