Many of Seattle's skyscrapers and government buildings also have semi secret tunnels between them. The idea was for workers to stay out of the rain but few people know about them. Worked security for years and was amazed how many passages exist around Seattle.
My dad worked in several of those buildings, and often took tunnels such as these to get to meetings quicker, or like you said, get out of the rain. I went to work a lot with him as a kid, so I remember walking those tunnels frequently. I’m sure we crossed paths when I was a young child. Small world!
I'm from Seattle and I actually used to work at the Underground Tours. As employees we were allowed to go on the tours for free and I would hang back by myself and go check out the places the tour doesn't take you. It is definitely creepy and unsettling but really cool at the same time. Like you are starring in a horror movie. 😨😱😝
i live in Seattle area..one piece of trivia that is interesting is that when they were rebuilding (raising) the streets they encourage the businesses and residents to throw all they're unneeded items into the middle of the street to help with fill..so to this day when they have to do major construction to the streets they find very strange items..one was a canoe in the middle of a street... A second piece of trivia ..during that same time Seattle was sending lumber to San Francisco and the ships would come back full of dirt for fill the raise the streets...
I went on the Seattle Underground Tour in the late 1970's. I never fogot the lore of the tide coming in and the toilets backing up. If you are ever in the Seattle area put this on top of your Bucket List. It will be the best 3-4 hours you ever spent. AND when I went there, there were NO RATS. Maybe a ghost or two but NO RATS. Rats would bother me more ghosts.
I’m from Seattle. I’m a commercial plumber. We do plumbing in the downtown Seattle commercial space. I have never been so scared in my life. The tour is an absolute must. What you won’t see is what I’ve seen. I’ve been in areas no one has. History is incredible.
Different part of the Seattle Underground~ In the 80's when they first started digging the bus tunnels, derelicts & street folk would enter for shelter. The tunnels had concrete pillars which had deep holes by the pillars. People could disappear in those easily.@@therapywithisabel
The decision to use the rebuilding after the fire to fix the toilet problem led to a series of modifications that resulted in a puzzling feature of downtown Seattle sidewalks. In order to keep people from getting a blast of seawater up the ass as they sat on a toilet when the tide turned, toilets had to be elevated above the ground. Those closest to Elliot Bay were 30 feet in the air, accessible by ladder. Not really convenient. So, after the fire, the city council decided to raise the ground to a more suitable height. They presented their plan to the landowners of the downtown lots, who wanted to know who was going to pay for the raising of their property. The council replied "you are". The landowners got a good laugh out of this and promptly rebuilt their buildings at the current level, complete with sidewalks. The city was not deterred, and built the streets at their desired level, ending at the sidewalks, leading to the world's largest waffle. People had to go up and down ladders to get from street level to sidewalk level to enter buildings, which was inconvenient and dangerous. So businesses built a second entrance at street level, and slapped down a couple of wood planks for people to walk over. More convenient, but no less dangerous. Plus, people would sometimes just fall off the street onto the sidewalk below. So, new sidewalks at street level. Now, though, the lower sidewalks were dark, and the business owners didn't want to pay to light them. The solution was to make skylights at regular intervals in the sidewalk, with round or square pieces of clear glass to let light through. Unfortunately, men discovered they could get a free show by standing underneath and looking up as women walked over them, all of who were wearing skirts and dresses. The clear glass was replaced with translucent glass. And those glass skylights, now turned purple after decades of sun exposure, are still there, in downtown Seattle's sidewalks and you can walk on them even today.
When the glass skylights were installed at street level to illuminate the sidewalks below the women of negotiable virtue would write their addresses on the soles of their shoes, and stand with their legs apart.
Life long Seattleite here. I appreciated this video and need to clarify that Seattle is not on the Pacific Ocean but is an inlet from the Pacific Ocean to the Salish Sea, which continues with a series of estuaries called the Puget Sound that is about 100 miles long. Yes, it is salt water, but no, it is not the Pacific Ocean in definition. There are still establishments that access space from the now street level into the underground. Check out the book Skid Row for some really great history about early Seattle.
I grew up in south Seattle. I used to sneak down all the time. No one really cares as long as you aren't destroying stuff. I've been on the tours and they do not give you a real understanding. Going in to the places tours don't go are the best stuff
You must not have listened very well when you're on the tour. I grew up in North Seattle and have been on the tour three times. They give you an excellent understanding of what underground Seattle is all about.
I grew up on Cap Hill in the 70s-80s, when it was allegedly better. I've never been, to my shame. I Iive in Ballard/Loyal Heights now; I plan on going down this summer.
Nice. When I was a teen living in the Magnolia neighborhood, my friend and I used to explore the abandoned buildings in nearby Fort Lawton/Discovery Park. Almost got caught a couple times. Fun stuff. :)
Seattle does have frequent rain, but it's not very heavy. Seattle specifically has almost the least rain in Western Washington because of a rain shadow from the Olympic mountains. It's a pretty average amount of rain total.
I got locked down in the underground once. I worked at a bar in Pioneer Square and the basement was part of the underground. You had to enter from the alley and the door locked as soon as it was shut. Someone forgot I was down there and shut the door and I was stuck for a few hours it was creepy as hell down there
My son moved to Kirkland in 2009 after finishing law school and when I visited him there around 09 or maybe 2010 we took the Underground Tour (along with riding the Ducks, too). It’s a great tour - I’d love to go back but he’s in Colorado now. I ended bringing back a couple books in the subject - this video reminded me of that tour and those,books. Thanks so much for a super video!!!!!
I'm from Seattle and have been here on multiple field trips as a kid and I love local history. I've been wanting to go back as an adult but never get around to it. This video is a good reminder, maybe in a month or two!
i highly recommend Bill Speidel’s tour if anybody ever visits seattle. it’s an amazing way to learn and appreciate the history of the city and how it developed and where it’s at now.
Bills is okay. But I'd rather go down the open staircase on 4th and Madison. I used to hang down there all the time with friends. There's so many ways to get under Seattle. And 99% of the time security is super chill about it.
Bill’s tour is the biggest but not as accurate or thoughtful. We live fact checked the guide and started laughing at some of the things. In case anyone from Bill’s tour is reading this, the great fire was in 1889 and killed one person and lots of rats.
As a person who grew up in Seattle and moved to OKC last year I love when people call Seattle's rainfall as "constant and heavy." It's frequent but almost always extraordinarily light. It's grey and drizzly for most of October to April
@@josephalfonsoamantia7028 Perhaps in California, but not so much in Oregon. Oregon's rain is like Seattle's; constant from November to April, but almost never more than a quarter inch at a time.
@@adiuntesserande6893 It depends where in Oregon. I used to live in rockaway (I moved there from Tacoma) and it frikkin poured in rockaway (from 90 to 120 inches a year). And alot of it sideways.
As a little kid in the 80s, I remember thinking there was something kinda creepy and odd about those glass tile areas, right in the middle of the sidewalk, that you pretty much had to walk over... That was before I knew about what layed beneath them! Once I heard about the Underground, at probably eleven or twelve yrs old, that was it... The hell I was ever walking over those areas again, figuring I may fall through em, maybe some whack job could be watching me, or maybe it would open up and I'd get yanked inside!... Heck, as much as it freaked me out, these days I wish I had the time, to sit around and ponder unrealistic junk like that!
There is a 1973 made for television movie set in the Seattle underground. The Night Strangler. A horror Sci-Fi crime movie. Main character is Carl Kolchak played by Garrin McGavin. This is the was my introduction to the underground
This is how, I learned of the Seattle underground, too!! Watched the pilot episode of "THE NIGHT STALKER", with my dad. It's the one, with the 'vampire', and later while 'Kolchak' (Darren McGavin) was investigating a murder, stumbled upon the underground, of old Seattle. This creeped me out, as a kid. I forgot about this episode for years, until I resaw it in the mid 2000's, while taping it, with my wife.
If you are a fan of those old Night Stalker episodes you might want to try and find the season 3 episode of the HBO series Hitchhiker titled Nightshift. It is about a particularly vile night shift nurse in a nursing home/hospice care that has a habit of stealing from the patients. Darren McGavin makes one of his last appearances in this and the surprise is well worth the wait. The role is very much a cameo and while he is present in the entire episode I didn't recognize him until the end. I can't even find this listed role on his bio and have only seen it twice.
The sight of all those old brick buildings with the tall windows reminds me of working in some of the oldest parts of new York and new Jersey. It's great to see them in color.
I live in Oregon in Corvallis and Portland has the Shanghai underground tunnels where people used to get Shanghaied when drunk and wake up on a boat and find themselves as forced labor workers. It must be a Pacific Northwest thing to have these underground areas for less Legal activities. Hey, it's kinda crazy and better than just doing things above ground out in public..plus u get to explore awesome underground areas once the times have changed.
I visited this place in 2011. It was really interesting. I am from San Francisco and was amazed how clean Seattle was by comparison and Pioneer Square was immaculate. Unfortunately I saw a recent photo and it appears Pioneer Square is a tent city.
I visited Seattle perhaps 15 years ago and I had a great experience. The hotel that I stayed at was located next to Pioneer Square, but I did not see any homeless people nor did I feel unsafe walking around there. Sadly, I have not been back.
I remember when I was like 9 on a trip to Seattle we went on a tour of the underground! it was super interesting and this video brought back a lot of memories
What I remember from the underground tour in the late 90's was the sarcasm of the tour guide. She told us that they had a lot of web sites as she pointed to all of the spider webs.
I listen to this channel when I take a nap and don't want to sleep for more than 10 minutes because the intro/outro is 10 times louder than the narrator so I'm guaranteed to wake right back up if I even fall asleep.
There’s a few cities down here in Oregon that have a underground system like this i know Portland, Salem, and Corvallis has a few was actually in Corvallis the other day and one of the glass plates was busted out so we decided to shine a flashlight in there to see if anything was down there but all we saw was a dirt floor amazing how many secretes can be hidden in plan sight
It's crazy how many tunnels are under Salem let alone in the one. Some of the ones near the capital are still used then there's the old Chinatown smugglers tunnels and then the ones used to transport mental patients.
I worked for various tech companies in Pioneer Square. The Underground tour is one of the first things that I suggest to visitors. The tour guides, who I could hear while at work at one job, exaggerated a lot to make the stories more interesting. The narration for this video is even more exaggerated than those tour guides.
My family while I was growing up was an US Air Force family. In early 1968 we were stationed at Paine Field AFB and we lived in Everett. While going to school there I would hear of the Underground tour from my classmates. I asked my dad if we could go to see the Seattle Underground but he had other interests. When we watched The Night Strangler in 1973 we had moved to North Carolina. That is when I saw what we had missed. If I go back on the road again and go back to the Seattle area I’ll see about taking the tour.
I'm a train nut and took Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Seattle about 20 years ago. Stayed at a nice hotel in rejuvenated Pioneer Square. Tool the underground tour. Stayed for 5 days. Each was mid 70s and pure sunshine. All the locals I talked to joked and thanked me for the good weather. It is cool when you look at buildings and realize that the low levels don't look like normal buildings because they're the 2nd to 4th levels.
Two other movies about the Seattle Underground are “Kolchak - The Night Strangler” 1973 with Darren McGavin and “The Rape of Richard Beck”,1985 with Richard Crenna. Both are free on RUclips.
I recommend Bill Spidel's book "Sons of the Profits." It's informative and often pretty funny. It's the most enjoyable book about Seattle history that I've read.
Hey thanks Ryan for more cool info, I have learned a lot about the beautiful country I live in and some of its wild projects and history. If only school history teachers made stuff interesting like this.
True story. Back 10+ years ago, Seattle was clean, (mostly) safe at night, and had some good bars and clubs in "Pioneer Square". When I was 22, the bathroom line was too long at pretty much every bar, so being a young jackass I decided to pee around the corner, damn near in plain sight. I noticed I was peeing in a missing piece of the purple underground skylight thing, and essentially peeing in the old "Underground", lol.
@@charliepalmer3244 you literally bemoan how Seattle once was clean and then tell a story about how you peed in public because you couldn't hold your piss... if Seattle was ever clean, it wasn't thanks to you either, so maybe withhold your judgment. :)
Random fact: The Seattle Underground is at least in part the inspiration for the Ankh-Morpork Underground in the Discworld books by Sir Terry Pratchett.
I’ve lived in Seattle on and off since the 1960s and grew up hanging out in the Pike Place Market and the underground when it was somewhat more accessible than it is now. It could be *sorta* creepy, but not especially dangerous. Far creepier and more dangerous is 3rd & Pike in 2023, right in the middle of downtown. There’s a murder or at least a shooting every few weeks, zombies smoke and shoot up drugs in plain daylight, public defecation has made it completely unsanitary. Kidnapping and sex trafficking have also become a problem, though perhaps less lately because kids mostly avoid downtown now. Absolutely do not let your underage kids go downtown by themselves. The city is truly a nightmare, and in a few years may well suffer the same fate as Detroit, with tech and aerospace playing the same part here as the automobile industry did in Detroit. Very, very sad.
I have done this tour. I don’t recall it being worth it. It does not feel like a town or city “underground”. You are basically walking through basement storage space, and hallways. If you do the tour expect to walk through a bunch of empty rooms.
You forgot the best movie that had the Seattle Underground in it which was coltax the night Strangler movie. One of the three great night stalker movies before they got sent and made the series. It was such a great movie. I'm surprised you didn't include it.
“Most unique “ is redundant and grammatically incorrect. The word unique cannot be modified. It means one of a kind. So, a thing can’t be very unique or more unique or extremely unique. Unique says it all.
This is super interesting and I love your videos, but your pacing is exhausting! I would much rather see you make this a 20-minute video, linger on some of the more interesting photos a bit longer, and take a few breaths in transition between segments/thoughts/etc.
Starting about 15 years after the fire began the regrade, often called the Denney regrade. The city is quite hilly, but it was far more so at the fin de siecle.
I’d be interested in rummaging thru those underground ruins to collect as much dirt & dust of the floors as possible.. just imagine how much Gold Rush era gold dust may in fact be lying around, waiting….
Kolchak:The Night Strangler (1973) Kolchak, working with helpful exotic dancer Louise (Jo Ann Pflug), enters into a race against time to stop the killer before he is able to complete the creation of his elixir and disappear for another 21 years. In the Seattle Underground under the old clinic, Kolchak has a face-to-face confrontation with Dr. Malcolm/Richards (Richard Anderson).
And... Richard Anderson played the OSI boss, Oscar Goldman, for two 1970s series: The Six Million Dollar Man (starring Lee Majors) and The Bionic Woman (starring Lindsay Wagner).
There was also an episode of *The Night Stalker or Strangler* back in the 70's that dealt with the Seattle Underground. Here is the episode if anyone cares to watch it ruclips.net/video/uz8Te5LpWt0/видео.html
Maybe you don't know about it, but there's another Horror film about the Seattle underground called The Night Strangler. It's a TV Movie from 1973 and is pretty darn good too.
@@TairnKA Yeah, I messed up. It's actually called Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle by Murray Morgan. Can find on the interwebz. Skid Road was actually what they called Yesler Way as split log skids helped steer timber to slide down the hill to the mouth of the Duwamish for export.
Fun fact: In the Netherlands toilets are still commonly reffered to as water closets, although it's abbreviated to wc and most people don't know the full term. (Just reacting to one line in the video.)
Ummm... That's pretty much everywhere I have ever been outside of America. So not as fun and hardly as uncommon as this comment would lead one to believe.
I have lived in Washington state since 76. My Mother a Washington native and her family here for nearly 100 years. I have worked in Seattle off and on since the 80's. I have seen Seattle tank. The graffiti is sickening. Along with the homeless, the violence , thefts and the insane driving habits. The value of a human life has no value there. I have lost several friends in car wrecks and a soon to be son in law murdered and put on the train tracks so his body could be cut into 3 pieces. Yea a real nice place to visit.
I know this might be a smaller idea but it's about my home town of Kenosha. I know it's not as big as Chicago or Milwaukee but being between the two I know there's stuff that's changed. I've seen pictures of the port/down town and it's changed a bunch. We used be a trade hub but now we have to dredge just to get some personal boats in. Also Chrysler used to have a large plant here. When I was growing up it was just a engine plant. Now it's just a giant grass lot.
"The Night Strangler" (1973), sequel to The Night Stalker, takes place in Seattle and the Underground plays a pivotal role in the movie. It's also free on RUclips right here: ruclips.net/video/uz8Te5LpWt0/видео.html (Spoilers if you wanna watch it) I think it's a vampire movie. From Wikipedia: _In the Seattle Underground under the old clinic, Kolchak has a face-to-face confrontation with Dr. Malcolm/Richards; the night strangler admits having first tried the elixir in 1868 and that he had hoped to spread the knowledge of immortality until he started aging in 1889 and his family also died (their mummified remains are kept near the doctor's laboratory)._ Some cool underground scenes if I remember right, haven't watched it since I was a kid.
I doubt that it was a surprise the underground was there. It is only the original first floor of the building. So the structure you see in the underground would be owned and operated by the owner of the above-ground building. In most cases, it was and still is storage. The tunnels are the original sidewalks and not much of a secret. Most, if not all of the entrances to the underground were locked off decades ago so the only way to get to the underground is through the building's basement. As for rats, they are a problem that all cities and towns still fight today. The Norway Rats have come in on the ships for decades and are not native to the area. Notice the cones on the mooring line that tie ships to the pier, that is for the rats, unfortunately, they can swim. As for the Plague, San Francisco also had an outbreak around the same time. Rats and their diseases are a problem in every port city even today. We in Seattle are proud of the Underground and how it solved unique problems in the city. Not as scary as it sounds and is still in use today by the owners of the buildings. Is still cool to see!
Many of Seattle's skyscrapers and government buildings also have semi secret tunnels between them. The idea was for workers to stay out of the rain but few people know about them.
Worked security for years and was amazed how many passages exist around Seattle.
Yup. I did the tour when I moved here 10 years ago. Pretty fascinating, with operating stores and stuff too.
There's a mini documentary on RUclips about them....
Hmmm might have to do some exploring to find some of these.
My dad worked in several of those buildings, and often took tunnels such as these to get to meetings quicker, or like you said, get out of the rain. I went to work a lot with him as a kid, so I remember walking those tunnels frequently. I’m sure we crossed paths when I was a young child. Small world!
Hey can you list some building s. I currently work in the area
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I'm from Seattle and I actually used to work at the Underground Tours. As employees we were allowed to go on the tours for free and I would hang back by myself and go check out the places the tour doesn't take you. It is definitely creepy and unsettling but really cool at the same time. Like you are starring in a horror movie. 😨😱😝
i live in Seattle area..one piece of trivia that is interesting is that when they were rebuilding (raising) the streets they encourage the businesses and residents to throw all they're unneeded items into the middle of the street to help with fill..so to this day when they have to do major construction to the streets they find very strange items..one was a canoe in the middle of a street...
A second piece of trivia ..during that same time Seattle was sending lumber to San Francisco and the ships would come back full of dirt for fill the raise the streets...
I went on the Seattle Underground Tour in the late 1970's. I never fogot the lore of the tide coming in and the toilets backing up. If you are ever in the Seattle area put this on top of your Bucket List. It will be the best 3-4 hours you ever spent. AND when I went there, there were NO RATS. Maybe a ghost or two but NO RATS. Rats would bother me more ghosts.
I went on it in 2009. I agree. It is so awesome! I enjoyed it alot.
The tour guides give a very humorous and entertaining history of the Underground. Well worth it.
Toilets backing up? Sign me up!
I went on it in the summer of 1990.
I did it in 2019 and the tide toilets are my favorite fun fact too from the tour
I’m from Seattle. I’m a commercial plumber. We do plumbing in the downtown Seattle commercial space. I have never been so scared in my life. The tour is an absolute must. What you won’t see is what I’ve seen. I’ve been in areas no one has. History is incredible.
I'd like to understand what part scared you so? Obviously, no pressure to share if you're not comfortable. I'm learning and curious. 💖
Different part of the Seattle Underground~ In the 80's when they first started digging the bus tunnels, derelicts & street folk would enter for shelter. The tunnels had concrete pillars which had deep holes by the pillars. People could disappear in those easily.@@therapywithisabel
Yes you are right. You used to be able to come up at the old Brothel at the Market
@@therapywithisabel A g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost!
The decision to use the rebuilding after the fire to fix the toilet problem led to a series of modifications that resulted in a puzzling feature of downtown Seattle sidewalks. In order to keep people from getting a blast of seawater up the ass as they sat on a toilet when the tide turned, toilets had to be elevated above the ground. Those closest to Elliot Bay were 30 feet in the air, accessible by ladder. Not really convenient. So, after the fire, the city council decided to raise the ground to a more suitable height. They presented their plan to the landowners of the downtown lots, who wanted to know who was going to pay for the raising of their property. The council replied "you are". The landowners got a good laugh out of this and promptly rebuilt their buildings at the current level, complete with sidewalks. The city was not deterred, and built the streets at their desired level, ending at the sidewalks, leading to the world's largest waffle. People had to go up and down ladders to get from street level to sidewalk level to enter buildings, which was inconvenient and dangerous. So businesses built a second entrance at street level, and slapped down a couple of wood planks for people to walk over. More convenient, but no less dangerous. Plus, people would sometimes just fall off the street onto the sidewalk below. So, new sidewalks at street level. Now, though, the lower sidewalks were dark, and the business owners didn't want to pay to light them. The solution was to make skylights at regular intervals in the sidewalk, with round or square pieces of clear glass to let light through. Unfortunately, men discovered they could get a free show by standing underneath and looking up as women walked over them, all of who were wearing skirts and dresses. The clear glass was replaced with translucent glass. And those glass skylights, now turned purple after decades of sun exposure, are still there, in downtown Seattle's sidewalks and you can walk on them even today.
I was just in Seattle let weekend, I noticed those squares in the sidewalks all over. I had no idea what they were though. That’s a really cool story
When the glass skylights were installed at street level to illuminate the sidewalks below the women of negotiable virtue would write their addresses on the soles of their shoes, and stand with their legs apart.
Life long Seattleite here. I appreciated this video and need to clarify that Seattle is not on the Pacific Ocean but is an inlet from the Pacific Ocean to the Salish Sea, which continues with a series of estuaries called the Puget Sound that is about 100 miles long. Yes, it is salt water, but no, it is not the Pacific Ocean in definition. There are still establishments that access space from the now street level into the underground.
Check out the book Skid Row for some really great history about early Seattle.
Bill Speidel's book "sons of the profits" is an excellent history of this area.
I grew up in south Seattle. I used to sneak down all the time. No one really cares as long as you aren't destroying stuff. I've been on the tours and they do not give you a real understanding. Going in to the places tours don't go are the best stuff
You must not have listened very well when you're on the tour. I grew up in North Seattle and have been on the tour three times. They give you an excellent understanding of what underground Seattle is all about.
I’m from Seattle and all I know is it is in a sad state these days. Way to much bullshit going on there
I grew up on Cap Hill in the 70s-80s, when it was allegedly better. I've never been, to my shame.
I Iive in Ballard/Loyal Heights now; I plan on going down this summer.
@@Hyapatia77 ha, we switched places, i grew up in ballard and now i live in cap hill
i’ve never been in the underground either!
Nice. When I was a teen living in the Magnolia neighborhood, my friend and I used to explore the abandoned buildings in nearby Fort Lawton/Discovery Park. Almost got caught a couple times. Fun stuff. :)
Seattle does have frequent rain, but it's not very heavy. Seattle specifically has almost the least rain in Western Washington because of a rain shadow from the Olympic mountains. It's a pretty average amount of rain total.
I was about to post the same thing.
I got locked down in the underground once. I worked at a bar in Pioneer Square and the basement was part of the underground. You had to enter from the alley and the door locked as soon as it was shut. Someone forgot I was down there and shut the door and I was stuck for a few hours it was creepy as hell down there
My son moved to Kirkland in 2009 after finishing law school and when I visited him there around 09 or maybe 2010 we took the Underground Tour (along with riding the Ducks, too). It’s a great tour - I’d love to go back but he’s in Colorado now. I ended bringing back a couple books in the subject - this video reminded me of that tour and those,books. Thanks so much for a super video!!!!!
Everyone that actually lives in this city hated the "ride the duck" tours those were a plight on the city, glad they're gone for good.
I'm from Seattle and have been here on multiple field trips as a kid and I love local history. I've been wanting to go back as an adult but never get around to it. This video is a good reminder, maybe in a month or two!
It’s SO GOOD as an adult!
So many jokes that float over your head when you’re a kid!
Ditto, it was a must see attraction when my guests from out of town came to visit me in Seattle. They found the 'Underground' fascinating.
have you been able to vist/revisit the underground? 🤞🏾 if not, hope so soon!
@@ambert.3792 Nope, still not! Just randomly watching this video again and seeing my old comment lol. I should go by this summer!
i highly recommend Bill Speidel’s tour if anybody ever visits seattle. it’s an amazing way to learn and appreciate the history of the city and how it developed and where it’s at now.
It's because of where it's at now that I won't go.
Bills is okay. But I'd rather go down the open staircase on 4th and Madison. I used to hang down there all the time with friends. There's so many ways to get under Seattle. And 99% of the time security is super chill about it.
Yes I really loved that tour it was really cool !
Bill’s tour is the biggest but not as accurate or thoughtful. We live fact checked the guide and started laughing at some of the things. In case anyone from Bill’s tour is reading this, the great fire was in 1889 and killed one person and lots of rats.
@@AndyKPOV share the details my guy. Ive walked through there 3 times and haven't seen such a thing.
As a person who grew up in Seattle and moved to OKC last year I love when people call Seattle's rainfall as "constant and heavy." It's frequent but almost always extraordinarily light. It's grey and drizzly for most of October to April
It’s just always wet, it doesn’t ever rain that hard or for that long but it’s constantly wet outside for like 7 months
Exactly. In California and Oregon when it rains it pours because it's not constantly misty and wet like Seattle.
@@josephalfonsoamantia7028 Perhaps in California, but not so much in Oregon. Oregon's rain is like Seattle's; constant from November to April, but almost never more than a quarter inch at a time.
@@adiuntesserande6893
It depends where in Oregon. I used to live in rockaway (I moved there from Tacoma) and it frikkin poured in rockaway (from 90 to 120 inches a year). And alot of it sideways.
From Vancouver and you guys get more rain we literally say “at least you aren’t in Seattle “ lol
As a little kid in the 80s, I remember thinking there was something kinda creepy and odd about those glass tile areas, right in the middle of the sidewalk, that you pretty much had to walk over... That was before I knew about what layed beneath them! Once I heard about the Underground, at probably eleven or twelve yrs old, that was it... The hell I was ever walking over those areas again, figuring I may fall through em, maybe some whack job could be watching me, or maybe it would open up and I'd get yanked inside!... Heck, as much as it freaked me out, these days I wish I had the time, to sit around and ponder unrealistic junk like that!
There is a 1973 made for television movie set in the Seattle underground. The Night Strangler. A horror Sci-Fi crime movie. Main character is Carl Kolchak played by Garrin McGavin. This is the was my introduction to the underground
This is how, I learned of the Seattle underground, too!! Watched the pilot episode of "THE NIGHT STALKER", with my dad. It's the one, with the 'vampire', and later while 'Kolchak' (Darren McGavin) was investigating a murder, stumbled upon the underground, of old Seattle. This creeped me out, as a kid. I forgot about this episode for years, until I resaw it in the mid 2000's, while taping it, with my wife.
If you are a fan of those old Night Stalker episodes you might want to try and find the season 3 episode of the HBO series Hitchhiker titled Nightshift. It is about a particularly vile night shift nurse in a nursing home/hospice care that has a habit of stealing from the patients. Darren McGavin makes one of his last appearances in this and the surprise is well worth the wait. The role is very much a cameo and while he is present in the entire episode I didn't recognize him until the end. I can't even find this listed role on his bio and have only seen it twice.
@@socket_error1000 … I’ll check it out
I watch this as a kid in the 70's! My dad would tell us stories about the Underground before I saw The Night Stalker.
@@yvonnesnyder4180 …. It was decades later I learned the Seattle Underground actually existed. It wasn’t a place made up by Hollywood
The sight of all those old brick buildings with the tall windows reminds me of working in some of the oldest parts of new York and new Jersey. It's great to see them in color.
I live in Oregon in Corvallis and Portland has the Shanghai underground tunnels where people used to get Shanghaied when drunk and wake up on a boat and find themselves as forced labor workers. It must be a Pacific Northwest thing to have these underground areas for less Legal activities. Hey, it's kinda crazy and better than just doing things above ground out in public..plus u get to explore awesome underground areas once the times have changed.
Very cool episode Ryan, thx for taking us along and the history lesson...
This is so interesting to watch, seeing the old videos and pictures brought me a new appreciation to Seattle for me!
Thank you for this video.
Do a video on Portland's Underground Tunnels next, quite an interesting tale there as well
I visited this place in 2011. It was really interesting. I am from San Francisco and was amazed how clean Seattle was by comparison and Pioneer Square was immaculate. Unfortunately I saw a recent photo and it appears Pioneer Square is a tent city.
Pioneer square is actually pretty clear these days, they've been clearing it out. Its the rest of downtown that's a shit hole
@@B0BBARKER444 Currently it kind of comes and goes, one area gets cleared so another area fills up and so on.
I visited Seattle perhaps 15 years ago and I had a great experience. The hotel that I stayed at was located next to Pioneer Square, but I did not see any homeless people nor did I feel unsafe walking around there. Sadly, I have not been back.
That's Socialism for you.
@@williamharris8367 Don't go back. Then you'll really be sad.
I've taken the ghost tour. It's cool, but personally, I never "felt" or saw anything...
I remember when I was like 9 on a trip to Seattle we went on a tour of the underground! it was super interesting and this video brought back a lot of memories
Fascinating! I had no idea. Thank you for this episode 😊
I used to live in a building that had a connection to the Underground. Our laundry room was technically part of it.
This is very well researched and very interesting. I will be looking out for more of your videos. Thank you.
Awesome video my friend. I love the historical facts of it as well.
Glad the Underground Tour did all the heavy lifting of your program for you. You should have gave them some credit for your "work"
Have you done any research on Denny Hill? The city used water cannons to wash it away. There is a well written book about it.
Those visiting Sacramento should take the tour of the Old Sacramento underground. It is a docent tour. It's truly a surreal sight.
Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA all need a BIG cleaning and a lot of TLC. All four are different but are gem's in their own way.
The Basement of Colin's Pub will give You access to the Underground
What I remember from the underground tour in the late 90's was the sarcasm of the tour guide. She told us that they had a lot of web sites as she pointed to all of the spider webs.
I listen to this channel when I take a nap and don't want to sleep for more than 10 minutes because the intro/outro is 10 times louder than the narrator so I'm guaranteed to wake right back up if I even fall asleep.
There’s a few cities down here in Oregon that have a underground system like this i know Portland, Salem, and Corvallis has a few was actually in Corvallis the other day and one of the glass plates was busted out so we decided to shine a flashlight in there to see if anything was down there but all we saw was a dirt floor amazing how many secretes can be hidden in plan sight
It's crazy how many tunnels are under Salem let alone in the one. Some of the ones near the capital are still used then there's the old Chinatown smugglers tunnels and then the ones used to transport mental patients.
You missed how a Madam helped fund the reconstruction
This reminds me of how all the homes in Galveston Island, Texas were elevated after the Great Storm of 1900 devastated the city.
Looks like some of the photos you used were from the tearing down of Denny Hill a bit north of Pioneer Square.
I worked for various tech companies in Pioneer Square. The Underground tour is one of the first things that I suggest to visitors.
The tour guides, who I could hear while at work at one job, exaggerated a lot to make the stories more interesting. The narration for this video is even more exaggerated than those tour guides.
My family while I was growing up was an US Air Force family. In early 1968 we were stationed at Paine Field AFB and we lived in Everett. While going to school there I would hear of the Underground tour from my classmates. I asked my dad if we could go to see the Seattle Underground but he had other interests.
When we watched The Night Strangler in 1973 we had moved to North Carolina. That is when I saw what we had missed.
If I go back on the road again and go back to the Seattle area I’ll see about taking the tour.
Walked through Pioneer Square everyday for months. Visited several Museums, never had a clue of the underground, fascinating.
I learned about the Seattle underground the same way most of my generation did... an early 1970's episode of Scooby Doo!
The Seattle underground first came to my attention in an episode of Kolchak, the Night Stalker.
In 2011, I spent about six weeks in the Pioneer Square district. It is, indeed, a fascinating area!
I'm a train nut and took Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Seattle about 20 years ago. Stayed at a nice hotel in rejuvenated Pioneer Square. Tool the underground tour. Stayed for 5 days. Each was mid 70s and pure sunshine. All the locals I talked to joked and thanked me for the good weather. It is cool when you look at buildings and realize that the low levels don't look like normal buildings because they're the 2nd to 4th levels.
Holy shit.. from Pittsburgh to Seattle!?!? How long did was that ride ?
Two other movies about the Seattle Underground are “Kolchak - The Night Strangler” 1973 with Darren McGavin and “The Rape of Richard Beck”,1985 with Richard Crenna. Both are free on RUclips.
Take the tour! Fascinating and the tour guides do a fantastic job! If given the choice, Kiahn (the guide) was hilarious, engaging and informative.
Yukon Alaska? Fort Yukon yes. Klondike gold rush. Yukon territory of Canada 🇨🇦.
Hello fellow Seattleites
Edit: I totally want to learn more about the dark/creepy/grimey/illegal side of Seattle. It’s very exciting.
go to 3rd and pine with a gucci belt on
@@maxdorn8130 that's no fun i mean like urban legends and stuff like the Seattle underground. funny joke tho, 3rd is pretty grimey.
I recommend Bill Spidel's book "Sons of the Profits." It's informative and often pretty funny. It's the most enjoyable book about Seattle history that I've read.
Hey thanks Ryan for more cool info, I have learned a lot about the beautiful country I live in and some of its wild projects and history. If only school history teachers made stuff interesting like this.
True story. Back 10+ years ago, Seattle was clean, (mostly) safe at night, and had some good bars and clubs in "Pioneer Square". When I was 22, the bathroom line was too long at pretty much every bar, so being a young jackass I decided to pee around the corner, damn near in plain sight. I noticed I was peeing in a missing piece of the purple underground skylight thing, and essentially peeing in the old "Underground", lol.
sounds really clean…
Well, it wasn't "shit"
@@charliepalmer3244 you literally bemoan how Seattle once was clean and then tell a story about how you peed in public because you couldn't hold your piss... if Seattle was ever clean, it wasn't thanks to you either, so maybe withhold your judgment. :)
I’ve lived in Seattle since a teenager, 50+ years ago. I’d never heard of Captain G. I’ll have to look into that. Thanks.
My husband and I toured the underground. It was absolutely fascinating!
Random fact: The Seattle Underground is at least in part the inspiration for the Ankh-Morpork Underground in the Discworld books by Sir Terry Pratchett.
I’ve lived in Seattle on and off since the 1960s and grew up hanging out in the Pike Place Market and the underground when it was somewhat more accessible than it is now. It could be *sorta* creepy, but not especially dangerous.
Far creepier and more dangerous is 3rd & Pike in 2023, right in the middle of downtown. There’s a murder or at least a shooting every few weeks, zombies smoke and shoot up drugs in plain daylight, public defecation has made it completely unsanitary.
Kidnapping and sex trafficking have also become a problem, though perhaps less lately because kids mostly avoid downtown now. Absolutely do not let your underage kids go downtown by themselves.
The city is truly a nightmare, and in a few years may well suffer the same fate as Detroit, with tech and aerospace playing the same part here as the automobile industry did in Detroit.
Very, very sad.
Went on the tour many years ago and never saw a ghost.
Above ground, there area still some of the original buildings being used today.
this makes me wanna watch a video on the history of the shanghi tunnels of old town portland
I have done this tour. I don’t recall it being worth it. It does not feel like a town or city “underground”. You are basically walking through basement storage space, and hallways. If you do the tour expect to walk through a bunch of empty rooms.
My dad recommended this. I think the Paris catacombs were enough.
Have You done a Vido of the Alanta Georgia Underground ??
More Fantastic History ...Thanks .....
I had heard that some of the tunnels were majorly haunted. Just what I had heard. Have a great day everyone
Dennis Leary lives underground with his Oldsmobile 442
Murder Death Kill..lol
What are the shells for?
Took the tour in 2013, very interesting and enjoyable. Didn't see any ghosts though, bummer.
You forgot the best movie that had the Seattle Underground in it which was coltax the night Strangler movie. One of the three great night stalker movies before they got sent and made the series. It was such a great movie. I'm surprised you didn't include it.
“Most unique “ is redundant and grammatically incorrect.
The word unique cannot be modified.
It means one of a kind.
So, a thing can’t be very unique or more unique or extremely unique.
Unique says it all.
I approve of this pedantic digression.
Some toilets are still called water closets. You see it a lot in commercial applications
Cool share thanks.
Now the criminals have come up above ground and work at city hall.
and Olympia
You guys lost lol
This is super interesting and I love your videos, but your pacing is exhausting! I would much rather see you make this a 20-minute video, linger on some of the more interesting photos a bit longer, and take a few breaths in transition between segments/thoughts/etc.
Starting about 15 years after the fire began the regrade, often called the Denney regrade. The city is quite hilly, but it was far more so at the fin de siecle.
I’d like to know about Portland’s underground
I’d be interested in rummaging thru those underground ruins to collect as much dirt & dust of the floors as possible.. just imagine how much Gold Rush era gold dust may in fact be lying around, waiting….
Now they just run around above ground setting the city ablaze
went on the underground tour year's ago, i loved it.
Kolchak:The Night Strangler (1973)
Kolchak, working with helpful exotic dancer Louise (Jo Ann Pflug), enters into a race against time to stop the killer before he is able to complete the creation of his elixir and disappear for another 21 years. In the Seattle Underground under the old clinic, Kolchak has a face-to-face confrontation with Dr. Malcolm/Richards (Richard Anderson).
And... Richard Anderson played the OSI boss, Oscar Goldman, for two 1970s series: The Six Million Dollar Man (starring Lee Majors) and The Bionic Woman (starring Lindsay Wagner).
There was also an episode of *The Night Stalker or Strangler* back in the 70's that dealt with the Seattle Underground. Here is the episode if anyone cares to watch it ruclips.net/video/uz8Te5LpWt0/видео.html
"What's under there"
Under-where ?
Maybe you don't know about it, but there's another Horror film about the Seattle underground called The Night Strangler. It's a TV Movie from 1973 and is pretty darn good too.
that was kind of fun. I've been in the Seattle Underground. . . there were some shops there back in the 80s.
I live in pioneer square a few of those buildings in the old pictures are still there, great pictures by the way...infacr great video all in all
Two books I suggest you read are, "Son of the Profits" and "Doc Maynard" for a fun and interesting history of Seattle and its founders. ;-)
Don't forget Skid Row.
@@yvonnesnyder4180 I know of "Skid Row" in Seattle, but didn't know there was a book about it?
@@TairnKA Yeah, I messed up. It's actually called Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle
by Murray Morgan. Can find on the interwebz.
Skid Road was actually what they called Yesler Way as split log skids helped steer timber to slide down the hill to the mouth of the Duwamish for export.
In 1972 Dan Curtis directed The Night Strangler also dealing with the underground
It was a lot funner in the 90's you could sneak in off first avenue. Now all the crime is above on the streets.
There are other blocks besides pioneer that are underground in Seattle and very much operate illegal happenings . People living there also
The earthquake you mentioned happened in 1949, not 1939.
Crazy history. It sounds very similar to kowloon walled city in a way
Fun fact: In the Netherlands toilets are still commonly reffered to as water closets, although it's abbreviated to wc and most people don't know the full term. (Just reacting to one line in the video.)
Also uk.
'vhere's the vay say?'
Toilets on ships of documentation are referred to as Water Closets.
Ummm... That's pretty much everywhere I have ever been outside of America. So not as fun and hardly as uncommon as this comment would lead one to believe.
Modern day Seattle would probably be cleaner if it wasn’t raised
I went to the underground Seattle when I was stationed in the Park service.I would ride the Mono rail to the Space Needle.I was at Mt.St. Helens.
Been down there about 200 years old
They did the exact same thing in Havre, Montana after the fire in 1904
I’m not sure if you have covered it or not, but Atlanta, Ga has an underground too
I have lived in Washington state since 76. My Mother a Washington native and her family here for nearly 100 years. I have worked in Seattle off and on since the 80's. I have seen Seattle tank. The graffiti is sickening. Along with the homeless, the violence , thefts and the insane driving habits. The value of a human life has no value there. I have lost several friends in car wrecks and a soon to be son in law murdered and put on the train tracks so his body could be cut into 3 pieces. Yea a real nice place to visit.
I know this might be a smaller idea but it's about my home town of Kenosha. I know it's not as big as Chicago or Milwaukee but being between the two I know there's stuff that's changed. I've seen pictures of the port/down town and it's changed a bunch. We used be a trade hub but now we have to dredge just to get some personal boats in. Also Chrysler used to have a large plant here. When I was growing up it was just a engine plant. Now it's just a giant grass lot.
I wonder why homeless haven't moved in.
The history of the Pittsburgh steel industry and its effects of the growth of the US would be a really cool video
You called it a "mudslide" ... that's not mud lol
💩🤮
"The Night Strangler" (1973), sequel to The Night Stalker, takes place in Seattle and the Underground plays a pivotal role in the movie. It's also free on RUclips right here: ruclips.net/video/uz8Te5LpWt0/видео.html
(Spoilers if you wanna watch it) I think it's a vampire movie. From Wikipedia: _In the Seattle Underground under the old clinic, Kolchak has a face-to-face confrontation with Dr. Malcolm/Richards; the night strangler admits having first tried the elixir in 1868 and that he had hoped to spread the knowledge of immortality until he started aging in 1889 and his family also died (their mummified remains are kept near the doctor's laboratory)._
Some cool underground scenes if I remember right, haven't watched it since I was a kid.
I doubt that it was a surprise the underground was there. It is only the original first floor of the building. So the structure you see in the underground would be owned and operated by the owner of the above-ground building. In most cases, it was and still is storage. The tunnels are the original sidewalks and not much of a secret. Most, if not all of the entrances to the underground were locked off decades ago so the only way to get to the underground is through the building's basement. As for rats, they are a problem that all cities and towns still fight today. The Norway Rats have come in on the ships for decades and are not native to the area. Notice the cones on the mooring line that tie ships to the pier, that is for the rats, unfortunately, they can swim. As for the Plague, San Francisco also had an outbreak around the same time. Rats and their diseases are a problem in every port city even today. We in Seattle are proud of the Underground and how it solved unique problems in the city. Not as scary as it sounds and is still in use today by the owners of the buildings. Is still cool to see!