Philadelphia’s Once-scary Tunnels Are Breeding New Life
Janine Kusza, 25, leaves her New Jersey home every work day to travel to Philadelphia. The commute time is about 1 hour, and most of it is pleasant. The arduous part of the journey is often the final leg.
“When it’s raining, it’s awful. An umbrella does you no good. The city is too windy, and the rain comes from every direction.”
So Kusza walks underground from the high speedline to an sub-level entrance to her office building, keeping dry.
The tunnel system grew up in the 1970’s when Mayor Frank Rizzo spearheaded the plan to create pedestrian links to all commuter rails, allow through-routing of trains, and eliminate the limitations imposed by stub-end terminal designs.
“It was one of the greatest engineering projects of the last century,” explains Dr. David Gudelunas, Assistant Professor of Communications at Fairfield University. “Great forward thinking on the part of the city.”
Many private businesses got involved with the program. This was the time of white flight and they wanted to convince their air-born workers to continue commuting to the city.
“Big developers were anxious to link the new office construction with the SEPTA lines,” Gudelunas explains. “It’s a much easier sell to tenants. Take a train in from Bryn Mawr, walk up a flight of steps, and you’re in your buildings lobby. It played into the suburban fear of urban environments.”
When the commuter rail lines were all buried in the 1950’s, developers inherited massive tracks of land on Market Street. Quickly born were huge retail and commercial spaces like the Gallery and the Penn Center complex. As an incentive to draw suburban business that was fleeing the city, construction included networks of pedestrian concourses. These concourses were originally intended to allow customers to avoid the “dangers” of city living.
But like all the best laid plans of mice and men, this did not become the case. For many years the tunnels were avoided, or used only as a short detour. The only inhabitants were vermin and society’s forgotten.
Times have flipped this concept on its head. With the huge explosion of tourism and business in the 90’s, and a huge wave of Main Liners returning to Center City, the tunnels are once again kicking. Tunnel travel is a viable escape from the weather, or hidden shortcut for many denizens of Philadelphia.
Numerous accesses to the tunnels exist. Whether by stepping of your commuter rail or trolley, or simply descending down a flight of stairs off a stormy sidewalk. First impression is a simple one. The air is stale and heavy and often quite a bit warmer than the temperature above, not a pleasant area during the summer, and it is freezing in some places in the winter.
The oldest concourse, a massive passage running along Broad Street from City Hall to Locust Street, dates back to the subway’s opening in 1930’s. Broad Street offices and business connected directly below to the concourse. But when hard times hit Philadelphia in the 1950s’, Broad Street shuttered its many subterranean doors. With little activity, the homeless took up residence in the concourse.
Most of the office buildings used to have below ground access,” says explains Gudelunas. “Tenants and visitors could access the building from the concourse. There were businesses with even storefront space below ground all along Broad.
“By the late 80’s this had all disappeared, due to economic or security issues. It’s eerie to find the remnants of closed entrances.”
By the 1980’s, commuters and travelers avoided the area. Unhappy with the state of affairs, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), which oversees the tunnels, took great steps to make this ominous concourse safe for commuters, forcibly removing many of the homeless who journeyed in for shelter back then.
“In the early 80’s there were homeless villages all throughout the concourses. They were not safe for commuters, or the homeless,” explains Gudelunas. “Crime happened frequently, and it was often violent and unsolvable. SEPTA have taken all the necessary steps to put this in the past though. The transit police and SEPTA personnel keep the area under a tight watch.”
“It took a great deal of time to create an action plan for safety in the concourses,” explains Robert Dillulo, SEPTA Marketing office. “The system is actually the jurisdiction of several agencies and organizations, so it was never a simple decsision that SEPTA could or could not make.”
SEPTA has installed Emergency Call Boxes (ECB) in all subway stations. Use of an ECB will place you in immediate contact with SEPTA’s Police Command Center. In an emergency police assistance can be dispatched to your station within moments
Scott Kerzel, who runs a Pennsylvania transportation watchdog website called Pennways agrees. “SEPTA does a fairly decent job of keeping the concourses secure.”
“Crime is no more common in the underground then it is in the above ground,” commented John Whittaker of SEPTA Property Management. “SEPTA and the city work well together to ensure safety and comfort.”
It’s secure enough for Janine Kusza, despite her fears. “It’s a little creepy. I get a little uncomfortable,” she says. “But I would rather take creepy and dry then not creepy and wet.”
With the space now open for strolling, it is possible to glimpse a different side of the complicated history of the city. A visual history of the concourses, and even Philadelphia, can be seen in the material of the wall and floor. Passages go from tile to stone to concrete�from red to green to black. Weary yellow tiles and fluorescent light give an institutional quality to the surroundings. Some platforms have been closed, but abandoned stairwells leading to nowhere still linger, their uses now at the discretion of citizens and not SEPTA.
“I don’t like to think too much about what is down there,” laughs Janine Kusza. “Too many horror movies have clouded my judgment.”
Moving toward City Hall, the path is starker, colder, and even a bit eerie. The smell of urine is common. Water drips casually from pipes above, in a concrete network of passages. Maps are haphazardly placed to guide travelers, but the best navigation is instinct and a good sense of direction. Glimpses of sunlight are caught as the tunnels weave up and then back down, sloping up and around trolley and subway tunnels. Occasionally the sound of a guitar or fiddle can be heard.
Joe” is one of those guys that might be living down here, if not for clean-up efforts. “Not a good idea.” He says, “They sweep through here every night before they shut off the subways. You can’t hang out down here. I don’t think you’d want to either. I’ve seen a few rats. Huge rats.”
Joe plays his violin down here almost everyday. His spot is on the west side, where the concourse moves away from the fountains around City Hall.
“I try to lighten up the environment. The people down here are nice, they appreciate good music. The police don’t bother me much if I keep it clean.”
Beneath Lord & Taylor and the Market East Station, walkers feel the rush of wind as the subway approaches. Stairways allow for quick access up to street level, and connecting bridges link over the subway to the Gallery and Market East Station. Markers and signs for buildings that no longer exist, or stores long since closed, line some of the walls.
Despite security precautions like SEPTA’s emergency call boxes, some tunnels should be avoided because, as they weave around, there are many times when the cautious pedestrian can’t tell who is behind or in front, save for the sound of footsteps. The walls and ceilings change as the walker travels through the footprints of numerous buildings. A common design theme is sweeping cement structures. These tunnels support the considerable weight of not only City Hall, but also, at some points, multiple rail lines. Here a traveler feels the most claustrophobic, a state only heightened by the haphazard pattern of the path.
“They don’t document the history of the space” Pennways’ Kerzel says. “Very few maps of the concourses exist, and most of them are inaccurate or out-dated.”
But that doesn’t stop Dan Falatko, 26, who doesn’t usually take the trains, from using the tunnels as purely pedestrian route, rain or shine. “I can move faster. No crowds, no cars. I like the privacy. It’s my path of choice to and from work.”
Falatko has less virtuous reasons for preferring the tunnels. “Up there is the “gayborhood” he points above his head at Locust Street. “I can scramble below from my office to Bump or Dirty FranksâÂ?¦and nobody sees me! It’s an alcoholic’s dream.”
Unlike JANINE LAST NAME???? Dan isn’t freaked-out by the low lighting and echoing walls of the cavernous underground system. “I’d love to shoot a movie down here,” he says. “It’s so huge.”
Many cities posses such underground worlds, which provide respite from the elements, diminish above ground congestion, and play into the futuristic “inner city” concept of the 60’s and 70’s. MontrÃ?©al’s, for example is a massive network, a hidden icy of shops and businesses. Other cities, like Prague, have extensive networks of simply commuter tunnels. Popular in cities with severe winters, some are widely used – and other’s forgotten. Philadelphia’s falls somewhere in between these to extremes. But now with massive and continued growth in center city, we have a chance to watch a potential below ground renaissance. Underground construction is highly expensive, and in modern times often avoided. With an extensive network in place, Philadelphia has the opportunity to expand and grow this model
A proponent of such tunnels is famed Philadelphia urban planner Edmund Bacon. Bacon’s visions were commuter friendly; he dreamed of a city without vehicles, connected by tunnels, bridges, and concourses. The recently deceased Bacon is considered the father of modern Philadelphia. Chiefly remembered for Love Park and the redevelopments in Old City and Society Hill, Bacon pushed strongly for the addition of tunnels below the development projects of the city. Long an opponent of inner city congestion, if our former city father’s had carried out Bacon’s vision to the fullest; most of our foot travel would be submerged. But like many architects, Bacon’s ideas were truncated by budgets, zoning issues, and small minds.
“All of Bacon’s ideas for Philadelphia were commuter and pedestrian friendly. Bacon realized that Philadelphia couldn’t grow and develop dependent on vehicular transportation,” says Gudelunas. “Philadelphia is a colonial city, with small narrow streets. Bacon proposed burying as much underground as possible. It preserved the legacy of the above, while increasing the productivity of below.”
The concourses are at their best, or worst, closest to City Hall. From 17th and Market to 10th, a clever pedestrian can travel beneath the city, if he or she can navigate the confusing area below City Hall. Suburban Station’s concourse contains several fast food chains, a post office, several newsstands, a gym, a florist, off-track betting, and even a dollar store. The area is bustling with people moving quickly, coming from the suburbs and heading to work, usually at all times of the day.
Sharah Hill, 19, has worked at two different fast food providers in the concourse.
“We all know one another, we see on another every. Usually the same customers too,” she explains. “At first I didn’t like working down here, but now I’m cool with it.”
Sharah knows most the the transit employees by name, and by schedule. It’s a clockwork world below ground, everyone coming and going in repetitive patterns.
“Same people at the same time of dayâÂ?¦Coffee before work, soda with a cigarette at break, sandwich at lunchâÂ?¦..it’s always the same.”
In fact, Hill, now uses the tunnels just to get around. “I work out at the Philadelphia Sports Club, then walk from there to Temple’s campus.” She says “I love the tunnels.”
Ryan Mattis, 24, works in an adjacent building. Depending on the whims of Mother Nature, Ryan has the choice of entering from above or below. He’d like to see the commerce expanded “I wish there was more shopping down here,” he sighs.” There’s coffee. A lot of coffee. And junk food. I’d like some more healthy food choices.”
Mattis does appreciate the underground entrance to the Gallery mall. “It’s a god-send,” he says. “I can get to the Gallery without facing the wind. In the winter, Market Street is like a little slice of Chicago. I stay down here and I save the nose from frostbite.”
There’s also a fair amount of just plain hanging out in the tunnels these days. Ian Brass, 29 works at the Ritz Carlton and enters from the tunnels. “It’s the employee entrance, this is where the ‘help’ goes in!” he laughs Ian. Glass doors mark the access right near City Hall. It’s the only non-public entrance to above still in use.
“This is home to our smoke breaks too,” adds Ian. “You can always tell who we are, the only people in the tunnels in top hats, tails, or a tux.”
The Ritz Charlton is probably the most prominent of City Hall neighbors to reopen it’s below ground access. Two buildings in the Penn Center complex have also recently renovated, and added secure access to the concourses.
“Passenger activity on the Regional Rail system is on the rise. I think many of the tenants on Market are finding there employee’s taking Regional Rail, so with safety concourses resolved, access makes sense,” explains Robert Whittaker of SEPTA property management. “Philadelphia’s growth and success is cleary marked in the new renovations and improvements going on beneath”
Underground tunnel travel isn’t for anyone. It takes a bit of patience sometimes and some wits to navigate the system. A sense of curiosity and history are good as well. The adventurous will find it charming, while those in a hurry will find it often expedient and necessary.
“Just don’t step in any puddles,” laughs Dan Falatko, “You’re never sure what liquid they are.”
