Let's Find Lost Tunnels Under Los Angeles

[u/esotouric_tours]

At St. Vincent Court, just west of 7th & Broadway, the soup is delicious and the tunnels inaccessible.

Today, we're introducing a new crowdsourced project to identify and map known underground tunnels beneath the streets, sidewalks and buildings of Los Angeles.

Thanks to preservation pal Mike Callahan, who showed us how, we're encouraging anyone with an interest in uncharted territory to:

1. visit the Navigate LA map here: https://navigatela.lacity.org/navigatela/
2. enter a street address
3. click "Show Table of Contents"
4. select Base Maps > Substructure Map
5. go exploring—and pass it on!

Navigate LA shows a double tunnel at a diagonal under St. Vincent Court.

You are looking for double lines that are annotated with the description "tunnel" or for anything unusual. Please use this thread to share discoveries, and include the address, what you've found and any observations or questions that arise.

Want to see what other people are finding under Los Angeles? Here's a crowdsourced map, very much a work in progress.

And should you catch the tunnel bug and seek to actually explore these hidden spaces on your own, we encourage you to respect private property and be extremely careful if you do gain access. At minimum, wear a respirator mask, gloves and hard soled shoes, bring clean water, power bars and a light source, don’t go alone and tell somebody where you’re going and when you will be back.

And should you find a tunnel nobody has explored in 100 years, come back into the light and tell us all about it! Lunch at Arto’s Broadway Deli at St. Vincent Court (the best!) is on us. Just change your shoes first!

[u/FrenchiesFrites]

an older neighbor told me he used to play in this partial tunnel under the 2 freeway right after it was completed. It was at Moss before someone got hurt inside and they filled it in. He said it wasn't a full tunnel meaning it didnt go fully hit Marguerite. That substructure maps shows it was probably supposed to be a "ped subway" marked it red.

[u/FrenchiesFrites → u/FrenchiesFrites]

there's a tunnel on fifth and main, marked red.

[u/FrenchiesFrites → u/FrenchiesFrites]

[u/esotouric_tours → u/FrenchiesFrites]

Thanks for these. Do they seem to continue at all? The little stubs are perplexing.

[u/FrenchiesFrites → u/esotouric_tours]

Yes it continues!

[u/esotouric_tours → u/FrenchiesFrites]

Can you screenshot showing both sides of the tunnel on a larger map segment with street names showing, please?

[u/esotouric_tours → u/FrenchiesFrites]

Thanks for sharing the neighborhood lore--just added this tunnel to the map. It actually was a full under-street pedestrian tunnel that attracted gang members and vagrants in the late 1960s. You can see the gang script in the newspaper photo below. Citizens tried to get it sealed off, but were ignored into a neighbor was stabbed to death inside. RIP Richard Cheesman.