Seattle's Abandoned Underground City
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- Опубліковано 14 лис 2022
- In the early years of Seattle's history, the flooding streets of the city led the community to abandon its ground-floor level and build a new street level above. Join me on this small journey to explore this bizarre underground cityscape.
#seattle #history #architecture
REFERENCES:
"Doc Maynard, The Man Who Invented Seattle" by Bill Speidel
Bill Speidel's Underground Tour. Seattle, Washington, USA
MUSIC:
"Affirmation" by Scott Buckley:
• 'Affirmations' [Bitter...
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It is barely known outside of Houston, but the city has a massive tunnel system under the downtown area. Houston has incredible heat with massive humidity and the tunnel system supplies a cool alternative to walking in the jungle heat, amplified by the glass walled high rise buildings. The tunnel system has dozens and dozens of restaurants. In the south part of downtown, you can take an elevator to a skyway on the second floor. This skyway is a glass enclosed passageway between half a dozen high rise systems. If you love an adventure and don't mind a hike, the tunnel/skyway is a great adventure.
Hey that's cool! I didn't know about that!
Chicago has something similar.
Yeap!!Yeah!!! The downtown tunnels are 10,000x more complex and large as any of the basements and random alleys the city grew over Seattle calls an "underground city" I've been to both and the Seattle one is a joke...compared to Houston(not to minimize the historical relevance or how cool the Seattle underground is..it's pretty cool, just nothing like the downtown tunnels complex in Houston that is like a mall compete with stores, food courts, and access to many of the Downtown skyscrapers)
@norml.hugh-mann Wow, hard to believe an "underground city" formed over 125 years ago out of necessity isn't as 'complex' as the modern downtown tunnels of Houston! Who'd have thought!
@@norml.hugh-mannThis video is to talk about the Seattle underground city not your crummy Houston thing.
I live in Seattle and have done the underground tour many times over the years. I love it. Such a cool way to walk through history. So glad you did this. Great video!
Same here… UA-camr
I had learned about it as a kid from watching Kolchak: the Night Strangler. Then, decades later when I visited Seattle, a friend who had settled there took me on the tour. Fascinating stuff.
@@dsolosan awesome!
Went to Seattle for a day trip in June '99, and this is the first I've learned of the underground city I never knew existed! Thanks for sharing! 😊
I took this tour about a decade ago and really enjoyed it, I didn't get very many photos, so this was especially fun to watch, to refresh my memory. Thanks for sharing this!
You're welcome!
Thanks for the free tour! Always wondered what it looked like
LOVED THIS VIDEO!!! would love some longer form videos like this. As always Alex you are so talented!
Thanks! It was definitely a fun video for me to make
Wow- this is so cool!! I've heard of this, but didn't know the history. Definitely need to make it to Seattle. Thanks so much, Alex! ❤
This tour was very much worth it! And the tour guides are so hilarious!
This is incredibly fascinating, absolutely loved this video Alex. I learned and discovered a lot, amazing job!!!!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
I was there in May and planned to do this tour but ran out of time. So glad you made this video! Great work, again!
Thank you!
Thanks. I've watched videos that have described and provided illustrations of the underground city, yours is the first I have seen that provides video.
Thanks! I wanted to give people something real to see!
❤ Thank you so much for sharing the underground history of Seattle!
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is so fascinating. This is about as close as we can get to time travel. Even when you have old building still in use they have been updated over the years, many times more than once, so you lose the aspect of what they were really like in the time they were built. This essentially takes you back in time without our infuences.
Wow fascinating! I never new this!
It’s cool there!
I think I had heard about this but just hearing about it left not much impact in my mind. Seeing it is fascinating.
Thank you, Alex. Great job as always.
It was amazing!
@@AlextheHistorian I am so glad you were able to go on the tour and appreciate your sharing with us.
When you say underground I think of a subway system not forgotten streets. It's probably because of the London underground. I somewhat forgot about this in Seattle. Nice you did a video on it.
I haven’t been there in a while… UA-camr
I did the "Beneath the Streets" tour in December, starting from an entrance in Cherry St. Seems to have smaller groups than some of the other tours, so therefore a personalised chat and tour from the very knowledgeable guide, who talks about architectural styles (fascinating), Seattle's First Nations and some broader history. Really a great experience.
They basically built a huge "waffle", comprising solid bluestone walls around each city block, 12-18ft ft high. Then the streets all had to be infilled to raise them to the new level. They also levelled six adjacent mountains using high-pressure water to wash the soil down and raise the mudflats - a mining technique called "sluicing". There are some amusing historical photos of houses perched right on top of a hill that has been taken away around them - owned by people who refused to sell up for the project.
🙂👍
Interesting to know that one entrepreneur decided to sluice a channel from Lake Washington to Elliot Bay through Beacon Hill and only stopped when City of Settle cut off their water as they wanted the canal where it is today.The scar still exists wheee it happened..(great YT video on here about the lake washington--Lake Union--to the Sound canal construction by one of the Seattle Historical groups)
What a fascinating insight to the secrets and history of such a wonderful city! I have heard about these underground tours, but have not yet joined one during my Seattle visits. It's definitely on my bucket list now for future visits. Thanks Alex, very inspiring and so well narrated, as always with your videos :)
Thanks Mark!
@AlextheHistorian we are going on a cruise next August and stopping in Seattle for a night. Who do you contact for a tour and how much does it cost??
@deebell8727 Bill Spiedel's Underground Tour. www.undergroundtour.com/
@@AlextheHistorian Our travel agent mentioned this to us and looked it up and found you! Thank you!!
Awesome! I'm glad I could be helpful!
WOW!! I love this! So facinating! 👍
Thanks!
That's so cool. I like how they put signs up so you know what street you were on or what business was there at one point. Were there any other advertisement signs in the tunnels? It would have been cool to see the businesses in their heyday when the area was still in use.
There were loads of signs down there, many though were just hand painted words on wood planks. But what was really cool was seeing an original street sign with the street names, just laying amongst the rubble.
I believe that fish market is usually referred to as the Pike Place Market. Seattle has my heart.❤
I have taken the tour three or four times over the years. It is a good Idea to contact the tour company ahead of time for a reservation, as space is limited. The tour guides tell an interesting story of what you see and the tour is different each time as they are adding new sections. Well worth the time.
Who does one contact to set up a tour??
It has been many years since I have been there. At that time there was a restaurant/bar in Pioneer Square that was in charge of doing the the tours. The restaurant was where the people would gather, sign in and pay, to begin the tour. I would suggest going on line and looking for "Seattle underground tours" to find the tour managing organization. Should be easy to find. Good luck, Enjoy. @@deebell8727
Well done!
I love this place! UA-camr
Nice footage. So few on the tour even looked around?.. just walking looking straight ahead!.. so much to see down there!
Well we were on a walking tour, the guide had us stop in certain sections, but when they got moving we had to keep up. Also the floors are uneven, you might need to step down then step up right after, so everyone was looking out for tripping hazards...there were even chunks of debris on the floor too.
I thought that might be due to the speed of the tour,.. too bad, however… guess it’s by design. Thanks for sharing. As a Wa resident, I should take the tour myself. Nice inspiration.
Thanks! I did not know this. Another of effort on this as well
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
Hard to believe the amazing ingenuity it must have taken to do this
I remember doing this tour once as a preteen with my parents....worth the time
Alex, another great watch. Looks like a bad dream down there but the history is great. Was there a musty smell down there? Thanks again for your time and hard work, never give-up on what you enjoy.
Actually it honestly just smelled like bricks, and cement. A very neutral smell.
@@AlextheHistorian It looks like it was a great way to spend the day.....
It was really fun, my dad and I enjoyed it a lot
Sweet ! Stuff like this fascinates me. I worked off site catering in Philly for years. One of the venues we worked at was an old bank (Same building in Real world Philly). I never got to explore, or.look but I was told there is a tunnel that goes from there (3rd and Arch) to city hall and some other places in the downtown as well as old city... Would love to find out if it really exists.
Born and raised in Seattle, my parents and I did the tour and used flashlights since it was in the dark at the time.
I did the tour 6 years ago. It's very interesting.
Wait, they built a city and then after the fact realized high tides were an issue?
Makes no sense right? World wide mud flood event told as something else historically.
Very informative. I like the video hope everybody else does as well
Old Sacramento did the same thing. Interesting tour
First heard of this from the 70s TV series "The Night Stalker" that was filmed here.
I first found out about this in an episode of "Night Stalker" back in the 1970s, where a vampire lived in the underground city of Seattle!
Bakersfield has a tunnel system in China town as well
Cool
Chattanooga is kind of the same way. I don't think it's as spread out like Seattle's underground though.
Awesome!
Oooh I jist love the idea of urbex and tunnels and stuff for some reason. Ig it just feels like to imagine what it would feel like is so in of itself freeing to tjink an wonder about etc, like many tjing that whimsical by nature or allurong etc. plus theres lots of nice lookin art to see imho idk why but fwiw I love seeing peeps show vlogs of such things that specifically included the
There’s a ‘Night Stalker’ episode from the 70’s dedicated to this.
Cities everywhere. The new 1700 and 1800's people either dug them out or redesigned them . Strange history.
Best part of that tour is the tour guides senses of humor:)
Agreed, the tour was hilarious!
Astoria has an underground too, as well as a tour, albeit definitely not as big. There are some of those same purple skylight glass blocks in the downtown area sidewalks too.
Oh nice, I'll have to look it up!
I didn’t know about that!
Pretty cool, isn't it? 😀
@@AlextheHistorian yes very
What an amazing space! You are so lucky. That place has to be haunted.
Some say it's haunted.
Does it really matter? Ghosts have always been fine with me! Never been haunted...yet one home I rented was supposed to be.
The man's name is pronounced "Spydell". He is a legend in Seattle, for his efforts to preserve old buildings and such.
Subbed.❤
@2:00 I believe that this was part of The Last Supper Club....I worked there and they still had the door that was welded shut that led to the underground...I maybe wrong but I feel like I remember this layout.
I did the underground tour. It was very interesting
I have herad the story about the great fire in Seattle and the same guy mentioned that the problem with that is that there is no ash, soot and burning marks on any part of the underground tour.
There could be a number of reasons for that. I mean plenty of cities were burned nearly to the ground, but the remaining buildings look fine today.
Very cool hope your videos view get better
Thanks! I hope so too
I guess it depends on which company takes you through. I did a tour from a business on Cherry st, I did not see ANY of these tunnels
Yes you have to take a tour from a specific company.
Lots of folks first became aware of this after seeing the 1973 TV-Movie "The Night Strangler". Where the Underground serves as the lair for a 130 year old murderer.
In the movie The night Strangler, Kolshak,1973,part of the movie was supposedly filmed in part of the underground city
I went to Seattle and I did the underground tour in May 2021.
Oh that is fascinating! It would be nice if one of the old storefronts was restored and made to look like the real shop used to inside.
Toronto has something similar called the PATH that is modern and active yet apparently still feels creepy. Some people move around the city entirely through it without going outside and are called moles, affectionately I think.
It's like Futurama's Old New York
You may even see knob and tube eg pre 40? Id say 1930s or pre 1940s era wiring.. oh and also the knob/tubes are ceramic.. or old fashioned tar impregnated or coated twine or jute insulation eg the weave or woven textile use of tar coated for a rubber insulation etc fwiw.
The Night Strangler still lives in the Seattle underground. Just ask Carl Kolchak.
This video to get big, or not to get big.
I hope it does!
Not
You forgot to mention the Great Seattle Fire and how it played a part in the abandonment of the old city!
It wasn't mentioned in my research
@@AlextheHistorian I remember it being talked about when I did a tour of the underground city several years ago, but perhaps it's not mentioned in all tours. Good video nonetheless!
It should've been because it was absolutely pivotal. June 6, 1889. Then fire your researcher @@AlextheHistorian
Also, the 'digging new hills' part relates to the Denny Regrade - which is further north from Pioneer Square, where these underground tours originate. And if you're interested, look also at how Puget Sound tides helped w/the discovery of 'flush toilets'. @@AlextheHistorian
"Then fire your researcher" -I am the researcher. Everything that goes into these videos is done by me. I do the research, I film the locations, I write the script, I narrate it, I select the music, I edit the video, and I fund the whole endeavor. Doing all the things a small studio would do, while maintaining a regular schedule of videos is quite difficult. I spent a week researching this video and never came across the story of the fire nor how it relates to the underground. I even took the expensive tour along with my father, and it just so happened to be a tour where they didn't discuss the fire, then again, it was a shortened tour due to covid restrictions they were trying to adhere to.
I think I did quite well with the research considering that I had never known anything about Seattle's history prior to starting the project. I cant be expected to search for a specific event in history, if i never knew the event happened in the first place. That's like expecting someone to have found a specific book when visiting the library. You're there to learn, but you don't know that you should be looking for that particular book.
I did the best I could do for a single person walking into the information blind folded.
ahnk morpork is built on mostly ahank morpork
went there almost 10 years ago, would highly recommend to anyone without bad knees or wheelchair
filled the space up? that would be a tremendous amount of fill dirt. where did this come from and where are the holes that would be left behind?
You'll have to be more specific about your question, filled what space? The building basements?
@@AlextheHistorian the video mentioned that walls were built, in front of the existing buildings, then dirt was used to fill this space. perhaps i misunderstood what was really being done.
@@sixmax11 oh yes, the dirt that created the new street level came from the demolition of a couple hills in the city. They actually destroyed whole hills and used all that soil to raise the height of the waterfront streets of the city.
I wouldn't want to be down there when the next Great EarthQuake hits the Seattle area.
I live un seattle!
i hate that you cut it short and left so much out you could have made a longer video and included more of the history of Seattle
The " underground tunnels" are remnants of humanity before the mud flood reset.
"Abandoned storefronts and crumbling infrastructure"? Are you sure you weren't just downtown? Also, the city geologically famous for sinking is having to close and adjust the heart of its rail system because... The rails are sinking! To be fair, the underground is cool because it lacks the squalor of the topside streets. (I'm from here and live here)
some one lost there raze scooter down there
Not sure I understand. If they raised everything because of flooding problems, wouldn’t this underground regularly flood?
The walls they built out of the old streets seals in each block, keeping them dry. Notice I showed the massive rock and concrete walls that surround each block. They also raised the height of the wharfs by a few feet in all of this landfill process, preventing a tide from coming into the city
Wouldnt want to be down there in a big earthquake
ps. I spotted a "Cheesecake Factory" in your frame :) One of my very favourite eating venues in America! Yummm!!!
🙂👍
This is considered an example of muud flood phenomenon? I don't know. I ask you.
I am a tour guide in the underground. IT IS NOT AN UNDERGROUND CITY. I am so tried of people saying that. It is merely the FIRST FLOOR of the city.
sounds like a technicality, lol. calm down.
Seattle can’t control the topside streets let alone “tunnels!” 🙉🙊🙈💩🙉🙊🙈💩
There is no underground city in Seattle. It’s just bits and pieces here and there that are basements now. It’s not really worth the money you pay to go on the tours
Well I liked it, I found value in it.
If there weren’t so many safety concerns bet the homeless would squat in the old underground city(sarcasm)
"beautiful city" of seattle. sounds like you've never walked around pike st. lmao
I have personally walked all over downtown. And yes I've walked Pike Street from 1st to 6th.
Maybe it's because I grew up in LA, or maybe it's because I currently live in Portland...but Pike street was nothing compared to other cities I've lived and walked in. I've lived in neighborhoods worse than Pike Street. To me, Seattle was absolutely beautiful, and one of the cleanest big cities I've ever seen.
@@AlextheHistorian doesn't matter, that's called relativism. when there's bodies all over the floor and druggies walking up and down the street, that's not beautiful. in fact, it's pretty sad you used that word, you undermine all the issues with Seattle and people like you make the city worse
Remember Pike Street Market. They do sell a lot of fish!
I'm going to guess that you are a Capricorn.
You don't live here forsure
Did not love this video, this is Academia's attempt to de-explain the "Mud Flood".
There are clearly 18 foot mountains of mud all over in between building THAT WAS NOT pulled or drudged from the sound. People were becoming panicked over the obvious proofs that there must of have been another civilization here before the Civil War. This video is meant to calm peoples anxieties.
I did not make this video to deceive people. If there is more to the story, then it's something I have not heard about after doing my research. I have never heard about any "mud flood"
@@AlextheHistorianyou don't want to know... it's a conspiracy theory. Thanks for this vlog its amazing. I live in Paris, France. We have the catacumbs underground. It's impressive but in your video we see real buldings. "Time capsule" is the word. Thanks.
Seattle is a dumpster fire, and I would know I work in it nightly. The city is not safe and its sad, very SAD!!!! Also, every city in the USA is built on top of previous city and that is a whole another story.
If i want to see seattle ruines today, i will just walk main level
I don't know why everyone says stuff like this. I walked all over downtown twice, once in 2021, and again a year later in 2022. It was one of the cleanest, most beautiful city downtowns I had ever seen. No garbage, no smell of pee, no poo, the buildings were in fantastic condition. I dont get it...if you want to see real ruins walk anywhere in LA or walk south of Market in San Francisco.
The worst thing I saw in Seattle was a group of homeless people doing drugs in broad daylight, with tourists like me walking past...but compared to where I live, Portland, Oregon...that was NOTHING.
Seattle was beautiful and clean.
maybe the homeless would feel more cared for if........... im just saying