ABANDONED Underground Concourses of Philadelphia - IT'S HISTORY

Deep below the streets of Philadelphia is a labyrinth of hidden tunnels and corridors developed over nearly a century ago. What few people realise, is that some sections of tunnel have been abandoned through out their entire history!

Index:
0:00 - Introduction to the Philadelphia underground concourses
0:48 - History of Philadelphia’s street cars and subway construction
2:36 - The history of expanding Philadelphia’s underground concourses
3:10 - The history of “The Gallery” (Philadelphia’s underground shopping-mall)
3:29 - Overview on the Philadelphias abandoned underground concourses
4:10 - Crime surge in Philadelphia / further abandonment of the underground concourses
4:54 - Philadelphia abandoned Arch street tunnel / concourse
5:57 - The history of Philadelphia graffiti art
6:53 - The further of Philadelphia underground concourses

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[ITSHISTORY]

Ring the bell and get ready for this one!!! YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS IT!

[colourwheel]

Montreal has 32 kilometres of underground city that is active and vital and beautiful. No need to get cold in the winter. Toronto also has a huge vast underground of 30 kilometres of shops, restaurants etc. called The Path. I think there are videos on both.

[isejanus]

I used those tunnels as a kid in the late sixties. I went to school near Suburban Station, the terminus of the Pennsylvania RR commuter lies. The concourse was a convenient way to get out of the rain and snow, at the time the only commercial activity was a news stand that stocked Marvel Comics.

[pauldudley]

Wow, I had no idea so many underground concourses closed. Before moving into my fraternity house at Temple, I explored all of them. Because of the many transportation systems I could travel from campus to Folcroft easily more than a dozen ways with my monthly SEPTA pass. I discovered a lot.

[bifftannen]

Philly the first "Graffiti" City but also the First City to be known for tieing your old sneakers together and throwing them over the telephone wires. Years later you could drive by and still see your childhood sneakers hanging in South Philly somewhere, no joke, LOL

[donoteat]

y'know you could have like, asked people who live here and use the concourse daily about the concourse rather than fabricate a crime wave explanation for the closure of the north concourse

[jeffgolden]

"The Gallery" mall is/was not underground. The concourse for the Market-Frankford subway might have been underground, but The Gallery rose about 3 or 4 stories above street level.
The concourse from 12th and Locust to Broad St to Suburban Station is still the best pedestrian path on a rainy day.
Lit's, Strawbridge & Clothier, and Gimbel's department stores (all long gone) had entrances directly from the concourse.
There used to be an outdoor ice skating rink at concourse level at 17th and JFK Blvd.
The center-city loop from 8th and Market to 16th and Locust is not unused. Its now the Patco High-Speed line from New Jersey. Patco also passes by the unused Franklin Square station (under the mostly overlooked northeastern square in Philadelphia's grid).

[tomtransport]

Edmund Bacon was Kevin Bacon, (the dancer/actor) father. In the late 50's 56 to 59 I traveled those tunnels every day of the week. The "UGLY" graffiti was non existent. B 4 school let out for the summer it was a lot cooler to walk down there. I walked from Reading station at Lehigh Ave. & Broad St. to Broad & Spring Garden St. to go to school. You could hear the subway trains/trolleys but I did not see them till I got to major subway stops and I had the tunnels to myself. The were well lit, clean, tiled and the echo was Cool.

[stevebabiak]

The internet of today still doesn’t have “smell-e-vision”; my recollection of some concourse areas is that there was a strong smell of urine there. And possibly homeless folks living there.

[lwgoinghome]

This really takes me back. Shivers. Grew up here and took the subway all the time. This is kinda weird now. I haven't lived there since 1988 but I am going to visit next month.

[neeneko]

Huh. I never realized the network was so big. A significant chunk is still open and used around the suburban station/city hall area, though wow is it easy to get lost.

[jayfredrickson]

As a long term (though not native) resident of Philly I find this fascinating. So much invisible history.

[austinevplab]

This is a great job! One thought for your next video, all these streets names - _From X street to Y street_ gives me no sense of scale because I don’t know the city. On one of those google maps perhaps placing indicators would be helpful. I enjoyed this one!

[towertone]

I guess for people familiar with Philly this is great but would've helped to have more map overlays to show the system rather than just street names.

[lisahaskell]

I moved away from Philly 11 years ago. I remember as a teenager walking all of those concourses underground to avoid the foot traffic on the street, especially when it rained. I am saddened to hear that many of the walkways and concourses are closed. I remember getting off the Market-Frankford El at 8th Street and walked the concourse to the Gallery directly underground. So sad to know these are closed. I also remembered during my high school years (the 80's) when the Broad Ridge Spur was re opened after years of closure, and the reopening of the Fairmount Avenue stop on the Broad Street Subway. I also remember the closed area after the Tasker Morris stop. So many memories.

[tracedehaven]

I would only add that the practice of closing down underground passageways began long before 2012. In late 70's/early 80's, I often used the underground tunnel that ran from the southwest corner of 30th street station under 30th street to the subway concourse for the Market St. El. That was closed in the late 80's I believe. And even in the early 80's when The Gallery was a thriving mall, the associated underground concourses underneath Market Street were not well utilized. It was dark and damp down there, not very inviting, thought to be dangerous. The city tried to clean it up, but their efforts did not lead to more utilization by commuters or pedestrians. There was frequently talk of extending The Gallery into that space, but nothing ever came of it, likely due to the expense of actually making it comfortable down there. It was handy on a rainy day, if you happened to be going that direction and weren't going far enough to get on the subway. I even used it a few times when I was a bike messenger, to get out of the rain, though I avoided actually riding down there. The police didn't like that at all. There used to be more underground access to office buildings. I remember using a staircase that would take you from a hallway off the below-ground-level concourse of suburban station (past the barber shop, if you remember where that was) up to a hotel fronting on 17th street. That staircase was also closed sometime in the mid-80's when the hotel was renovated or converted to office space, I don't remember. It would be nice to see some of these underground spaces be utilized again, but two things would have to happen first. One, mass transit would have to become a lot more popular again. And the issues of crime, grime and poor lighting would have to be sufficiently addressed to give the general public confidence in using those spaces again.

[Rebecca-lehn]

In the 70s, You could walk from Arch St. underground all the way to Strawbridge's. This was great on rainy and cold days.

[QuincyStallworth]

I used to roam those tunnels as kid. It’s amazing how if you have some time and curious friends, you can discover a whole new world.

[yvonneplant]

We probably will never know what might have happened with mass transit in the future in Philadelphia if " Trolley King" George Widener( and his son) had not died on the Titanic in 1912.

[TurtleDude]

Love this kind of history. In my city, we have an intire network of catacombs under our downtown area due to how they simply constructed new structures on top of old ones.