Infiltrating the Underground : L.A.’s Tunnels: A Passage of History and a Possible Link to Future

The darkness is punctured by a solitary 100-watt light bulb hanging overhead, but the interlopers trek on, ignoring the sweltering 110-degree heat. Suddenly, they stop: in front of them lies a crudely drawn sign welcoming them to Hell.

No, it’s not a clip from Steven Spielberg’s latest horror film, but a scene re-enacted several times a month by students at the University of California, Los Angeles. The students are three stories below ground, exploring UCLA’s steam tunnels, a labyrinthine network of cement conduits that links most of the major buildings on campus.

Across town, in an abandoned passageway last used more than 30 years ago by the Pacific Electric Red Car subway system, water drips from the ceiling and small stalactites grow from cracks in the cement.

Last used for its original purpose in 1955, the PE tunnel now lies in the shadow of downtown’s skyscrapers as a monument to Los Angeles’ first and, so far, only foray into underground rail transit. This tunnel is in disrepair, and is home to no more than a trespassing transient or the occasional rodent.

Both tunnels are part of a Los Angeles underground, neither political nor social, but one which presents a seldom-seen view of the city’s inner workings. There are more than 250 tunnels on record in the city, most of them common pedestrian tunnels or equestrian pathways, but there are also those with legendary histories and unexpected uses.

“We have conveyor tunnels, prisoner tunnels, private tunnels--all sorts of tunnels,” said Morton Rosen, a civil engineer in the city’s Department of Public Works. Los Angeles’ tunnels exist not as protection against inclement weather, as is the case back East, Rosen said, but mainly as subterranean arteries.

Of 270 tunnels on file in the city’s Public Works department, 221 are pedestrian tunnels, 14 are equestrian tunnels, 15 are vehicular in nature and 20 are classified as “miscellaneous.”

In the miscellaneous file is one tunnel in Bel-Air Estates that used to run beneath a public street but now lies under private property. The owners have since closed off one end and turned the tunnel into a climatically controlled wine cellar.

Other tunnels run between the Hall of Administration and Hall of Records, and between the Hall of Justice and the Criminal Courts Building in the Civic Center. The latter passageway is used to transport criminals from the jail to a warren of courtrooms. And a massive network of tunnels connects many of the Civic Center’s state and federal offices, affording bureaucrats the luxury of wandering from building to building without surfacing.

Not listed in the city’s “official” printout are UCLA’s steam plant tunnels. Those unfamiliar with “the tunnels” at UCLA, as they are knowingly called, might stop or even turn back at the nefarious greeting inside one of the passages. But tunnel veterans continue, knowing what lies in store beyond this hot stretch of cables, wires and pipes.

Just as suddenly as the intense heat begins, it diminishes, and a few angular turns later, the students find themselves in a huge cavern--the dank insides of a walled-in bridge below the center of campus. Some break out a bottle of beer and begin the party, one of many celebrated here in the past 50 years.

“They may say it’s dangerous, but I’ve been down there so many times I probably know the system better than the maintenance workers,” one 22-year-old student boasted. “We’re not malicious, we just go down to have a good party every now and then.”

That type of sentiment is a source of concern for the university, said Jess Romero, coordinator of the UCLA Insurance and Risk Management department, because students venturing into the tunnels leave the school open to possible lawsuits if any injuries are incurred.

Officially, students caught in the tunnels are subject to trespassing charges, but first-time offenders are given little more than an admonishment. Theoretically, recidivists are turned over to the city attorney’s office for prosecution, said University of California Police Department Sgt. Eugene Christiansen, who added that this had never happened during his tenure.

Giant Easel for Graffiti

UCLA’s tunnel system also acts as a giant easel for graffiti artists, who have turned the underground passages into a sort of latter-day Lascaux caves. The painted beasts of Cro-Magnon man are replaced in the school’s tunnels primarily with Greek letter names of the school’s fraternities and sororities, but other signatures dating back to the ‘40s have been scrawled on the cement walls, too.

Despite nearby fault lines, Los Angeles’ tunnels are among the safest places to be in the event of a temblor, said Phil Kaainoa, a structural engineer with the Earthquake Safety Division of the city’s Building and Safety Commission.

“Once you’re underground, it’s fairly safe to assume that the ground around you is going to move in the same directions,” Kaainoa said. “The stresses on the underground structure would not be much more than if there wasn’t an earthquake.”

In contrast to the tunnels under the Westwood campus, the Pacific Electric tunnel is cold, damp and utterly without light, save for the rays of sunlight entering from its mouth. As the light diminishes, so does the graffiti--even the youth gangs are seemingly afraid to venture into the vast darkness.

Foot Travel Uncomfortable

The floor, which used to hold two sets of subway tracks before they were sold for scrap, is now muddy and slick with organic growth. Foot travel is uncomfortable, parties are unthinkable.

The tunnel elicits a mixed bag of responses from its neighbors. The newer tenants in the area view the PE tunnel as an imposing but pleasant amenity, and use it as a park. Many, if not most, of the area’s newer residents seem to be unaware of the tunnel’s illustrious past, and appreciate the tunnel and its walls primarily for their colorful graffiti.

“I once went as far into the tunnel as anyone can go,” one resident said, “but that was just to explore. I don’t go in there any more. Now I just appreciate the hard work that goes into the graffiti.”

But that same graffiti and a walled-in grassy area next to the tunnel are the source of many complaints from longtime residents. One man, who has lived in a house near the mouth of the tunnel since 1951--when the Red Cars still made their trips up Glendale Boulevard and into Hollywood--said he wished that the tunnel would be sealed up to avoid encouraging bands of gangs from visiting it, and terrorizing the neighborhood in the process.

‘It Doesn’t Bother Me’

The tunnel itself doesn’t concern the man, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of gang reprisal: “I’ve been here so long it doesn’t bother me.”

Sealing up the tunnel would accomplish nothing, city officials said. The tunnel’s mouth is a frequent scene of film shooting and, though officials plead ignorance, several area residents claim that homeless men spend nights in the tunnel awaiting the daily job search routine.

During its heyday, the tunnel extended from its mouth at 2nd Street and Glendale Boulevard all the way to the subway terminal building between 4th and 5th streets and Olive and Hill streets, said Yukio Karawatan, a senior city planner with the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Now, however, as the result of the building of the Bonaventure Hotel and the Atlantic Richfield Towers, the 28-foot-wide tunnel extends only from its fenced-off entrance to below Figueroa Street near 4th Street. From the Subway Terminal Annex, a tail extends a few hundred feet and abruptly ends.

Uses Limited

As a result, the tunnel’s uses now are limited, Karawatani said, because the remaining 2,000 feet of tunnel would have to be reinforced to be used again in a transportation capacity, and to extend the tunnel would mean having to usurp some of the ARCO Plaza’s garage space.

Although the city now owns the rights to the tunnel and easements to the 2nd Street entrance, which is still owned by the Southern Pacific Land Co. (a successor of PE), the Southern California Rapid Transit District had eyed the tunnel with some jealousy, said Sam Louis, manager of engineering design for the RTD.

RTD planners once believed that the tunnel could be converted for use in the Metro Rail project at a considerable savings of funds, but the planned Metro Rail alignment avoids the tunnel area, Louis said.

In the meantime, a steady stream of ideas flows in. Some would have the space used to store city records, while in the 1960s the tunnel was used to store hundreds of thousands of pounds of survival crackers to be eaten in the event of a nuclear war. At one time the tunnel was also used to store automobiles confiscated in narcotics arrests, and a suggestion to use the area as a laboratory for testing laser equipment has also been recorded.

Subject of Legends

While the two tunnels on opposite sides of town present disparate views of the Los Angeles underground, others suggest some of the city’s history--and future.

One tunnel system, which runs under the El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park near Olvera Street, is the subject of long-running legends that say that early Chinese residents of the city used the tunnels as escape routes to avoid getting injured in the Chinese Massacre of 1890. Though the park’s senior curator, Jean Bruce Poole, calls the story “rubbish,” the service tunnels are still a popular attraction on the park tour.

Another tunnel, the partly completed Bunker Hill Transit Tunnel, which was originally part of a $259-million automated Downtown People Mover plan, could end up as another of the city’s legendary tunnels--but for the wrong reasons.

Split in Opinions

When the project was killed by the budget-conscious Reagan Administration in 1981, it left the city with a 1,500-foot concrete corridor underneath Bunker Hill between Hill and Flower streets. Proponents say the tunnel is a far-sighted, vital asset that is needed to reduce central city traffic congestion, while its detractors, the most vocal of whom is Councilman Ernani Bernardi, say it is a “needless waste of tax dollars.”

Early this month, the City Council approved $4 million to finish the tunnel, making it a $29-million venture overall. Even though it may eventually be completed, officials acknowledge that it doesn’t lead anywhere and may never carry passengers.

But the most familiar tunnels to the city’s residents remain those pedestrian walkways that run underneath surface streets near elementary schools. Sadly, Rosen said, many are now kept locked at night and are patrolled during the day to prevent vagrants from making the tunnels their homes.

For the most part, CRA’s Karawatani said, tunnel seekers will have to make do with existing substructures because city officials now advise against any more tunneling under city-owned property: “The city, as a whole, is discouraging any further tunneling because it (a newly completed tunnel) only becomes a urinal,” Karawatani said.