Pierce Photography Collection, USC Libraries. Courtesy of the Title Insurance and Trust / C.C. For these fledgling communities, a connection to downtown-then still the center of commercial life in the region-was vital.Ĭonstruction of the western portal of the Pacific Electric subway tunnel at 1st and Glendale, circa 1926. Further west, Santa Monica and Venice drew tourists and pleasure-seekers to their beachside resorts. Other tunnels in downtown Los Angeles, including L.A.'s first subway, were landmarks for decades but are no longer open for exploration or exploitation.īuilt early in the twentieth century and shuttered near the century's midway point, these tunnels were made necessary by simple fact of physical geography: a palisade of hills separated L.A.'s historic core from the upstart suburbs to the west.īeginning in the 1890s, the towns of Hollywood, Colegrove, and Sherman began attracting residents and businesses to the once rural Cahuenga Valley. Action films and car commercials often feature images of automobiles speeding through the Second and Third Street tunnels. News reports have explored the miles of pedestrian tunnels still buried beneath the civic center. Underground passageways hold the power to excite-especially when they're hidden underneath a busy city soaked in sunshine. Used under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Courtesy of the Metro Transportation Library and Archive. South portal of the Broadway tunnel, near Broadway and Temple, circa 1925.
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