We wrote a few months ago about how the opening to the old Pacific Electric Red Car tunnel near downtown had been filled in. The city's old subway once ran under downtown through the tunnel; the tunnel opening more recently appeared in countless productions, including the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge" video.
Now comes word, from the LA Downtown News, of a new $55 million housing project set to be built on the site (just west of the Harbor Freeway). The apartments are expected to offer 260 affordable housing units by 2005.
Writes the paper:
The project is at the foot of Crown Hill, a dense community that houses faded historic homes crowded by sagging apartment buildings, vacant lots and pockets of homeless encampments. At Second and Lucas Avenue, where the Northwest Gateway will be built, is the famed Red Car tunnel - known both as the Hollywood Subway and the Belmont Tunnel - which was the city's first underground subway tunnel.
Opened in 1925, it cut 15 minutes off the travel time from Downtown to Hollywood. The line began under the Subway Terminal Building at Olive and Fifth streets, and continued beneath Bunker and Crown hills for one mile to the northern end. The tunnel was abandoned by the Pacific Electric Railway in the late 1940s. The graffiti covered landmark is currently used for filming and impromptu soccer games.
I'm assuming the filming has pretty much ended now that the tunnel opening (a dramatic reminder of L.A.'s once thriving Red Car transit system) has been filled. Here's a great website -- including some amazing photos from deep inside -- by a group of urban explorers who toured the tunnel a few years ago.
For you L.A. history buffs, some trivia: The other side of the Hollywood Subway/Belmont Tunnel was filled in when what downtown hotel was built?
No comments:
Post a Comment