WEBVTT - Subterranean Cities 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.720 Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:15.960 I'm Scarah Dowdy and I'm to bling a Chalk Reporting 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:20.560 And today's topic is a very popular listener suggestion because 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.120 who doesn't love underground cities. I mean, they're so mysterious. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.560 It's kind of the world that we want to hide 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.320 from ourselves, if if we want to get really philosophical 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:37.479 about it, sewerds, bones, all kind of scary, Yeah, kind 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.000 of scary, kind of scary. I means, certainly if you're 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.680 going to go into like comic book territories where the 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.879 penguin lives the bad guy. Um, I don't want to 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.640 go down there by yourself. But intriguing too, and I 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.839 think that's why so many people have suggested this topic 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.800 to us. And um, not too long ago, I actually 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:59.520 edited an article on urban exploring by my freelancer, Julia Layton, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.120 and it was, you know, it covered the whole range 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:09.040 of urban exploring options, what like exploring abandoned buildings, factories, 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.280 that sort of thing, but it was the underground spots 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.560 that she mentioned, like these abandoned coal mines in France 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:21.720 or the Denver International Airport, which has this crazy underground 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:26.880 baggage handling labyrinth and all these New World Order conspiracy theories. 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.720 It was that kind of thing that really captivated my 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:32.280 attention with that article. Yeah, so that's kind of where 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.000 this idea came from, and we wanted to do a 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:39.280 mix of cities. But interestingly, some of the listeners suggestions 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.360 that we've gotten over the years have been kind of 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.920 out of the ordinary, just as out of the ordinary 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:50.360 as the as the Denver International Airport, the unexpected underground location, right, 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.040 not the typical London Rome Paris lineup that you might 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.080 expect if you hear about underground cities, though we will 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.240 be talking about some of those two so fittingly, many 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.360 of the suggestions seem to be inspired by personal experience, 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:08.160 people who had seen these subterranean worlds on guided tours 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:11.280 and wanted other people to know about them, and that 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.640 seems like a good place for us to insert a 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.120 little caveat here. While a lot of places will mention 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:19.320 are open to the public and are safe to tour, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:24.080 unsurprisingly most underground areas are not. They can be dangerous, 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:28.320 deadly and illegal. So just a disclaimer there, our little 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:31.600 disclaimer before we start, we're actually even going to be 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.840 mentioning a special police unit that tries to discourage exploration 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.480 or trespassing, depending on which side of the law you're on. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.160 There um in one particularly famous underground city. But the 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:50.639 first selection on our list is a truly ancient underground city. 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.079 And if you've ever seen Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:58.919 you're gonna be visually familiar already with Petra. In the movie, 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.680 it's the one of the buildings of Petra is the 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.720 setting for the temple that holds the Holy Grail, and 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:10.360 in the movie, the real life stone facade of that building, 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.000 it's called the Treasury in real life, leads to this 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.520 elaborate underground world. So it's probably not gonna be too 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.880 hard for folks who've always seen the movie to imagine 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.359 that there's an underground city connected to Petra. But um, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.040 that's not entirely the case. It's rather misleading, at least 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:27.880 not when it comes to that Treasury. Yeah, when the 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.239 when you when it comes to the Treasury building that 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.960 really is mostly a facade with just a very small 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:36.720 room carved out into the cliffs behind it that was 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.600 once used as a tomb, but Petra as a whole 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:45.040 definitely counts as an amazing underground city. It does the Nabatations, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:48.040 formerly a nomadic tribe, built in as their capital and 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.240 what is today Jordan's, and though they were annexed into 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.200 the Roman Empire in a d one o six, Petra 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.040 thrived as a trading capital for hundreds of years after that. 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.840 So the mountains made to the city defendable from attacks, 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.640 and the soft rocks made it easy to carve and 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:09.720 excavate underground areas in addition to creating an amazing water 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.440 system pipes, reservoirs, etcetera that allowed for refruit to be 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:19.479 grown in this arid region, plus uh gardens, baths, drinking 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.960 water and allowed for the inclusion of those things as well. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.840 So all these pipes just carved right through rock. I 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.520 think it might be um well, maybe not the most 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.640 visually impressive part of Petra. Of certainly an accomplishment, but 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.360 it was an unknown city to Westerners from the twelveth 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.440 century Crusades until eighteen twelve when a guy named Johann 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:45.240 Ludwig Burkhart came across it. It was, I don't know, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.159 like a story you would um read in a in 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.479 a real Victorian sort of travel account almost you know, 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.920 he was disguised as the Persian pilgrim came across these ruins, 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.600 and well, obviously, like I just said, very visually impressive. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.640 You know, imagine soaring buildings carved into rock and all 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:09.840 these diverse architectural styles peppered with enticing caves and underground chambers. 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.919 For a long time, archaeologists just saw what was on 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:15.080 the surface, you know, they just saw it as this 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:20.160 very strange, very elaborate tomb town. I mean, the treasury 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.960 that that we mentioned earlier is the prime example of that. 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.000 This beautiful facade, but just a tiny room underneath, I mean, 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:31.080 certainly not built for a thriving city, right, And it 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.560 actually wasn't until the later twentieth century that the full 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.520 scale of Petra started to reveal itself. According to a 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.200 Smithsonian article by Andrew Lawler, some eight hundred caves have 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.360 been identified to this point, somewhere tombs, others gathering spots 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.120 or just places to escape from the heat, and a 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.760 thriving surface level city also existed, with a six hundred 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.680 seat theater. Roman style villas, including one that's been excavated, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:01.640 which contains an olive press and Pompey style frescoes, and 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.400 these things obviously didn't survive intact, leading to that original 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.800 sort of eerie impression that Petro was underground only exactly 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.159 and in reality, as many as thirty thousand people probably 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:17.200 lived in Petra at its height. But finally, you know, 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.680 as a trading city, it really relied on lots of 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.400 people coming through, and as new caravan routes developed and 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.320 as the sea trade stole away some of the business, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:32.599 eventually the city fell into decline. Earthquakes didn't help matters either. Today, though, 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.039 it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so an underground city 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.800 that you can actually explore to a certain extent. But 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.320 there's a lot left to explore, I mean a lot 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.240 left for the professionals to explore, ed say. According to 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.279 a Natural and Geographic article by Mahdi Miltstein, only fifteen 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:54.000 percent of the site has been excavated, so find all 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.440 sorts of new things. But Petra we started off because 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.080 it really seems like an engineering marvel, I mean not 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.320 just because of those beautiful thoughts, but all those caves 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.640 carved deep into the rock, something that was clearly carefully planned, 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:11.400 carefully executed over a long period of time. But the 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.840 next entry on our list is the epitome of an afterthought, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.400 and it's a lot closer to home for us. It's 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.760 actually Seattle, which was founded in the mid eighteen hundreds 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.760 and not exactly the best location as far as tidal 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.720 flooding went. The city experienced major flooding problems right from 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.600 the start, but it wasn't really bad enough for them 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.480 to deal with the problem right away. But in the 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.280 summer of eighteen eighty nine, a major fire burned the town, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.520 which was mostly would at that point, to the ground, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.960 and new building codes reasoned out the fire risks and 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.120 ordered new construction to be done in brick or stone, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.920 but nobody really considered the flood issue still until many 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.760 new buildings were already standing. It doesn't seem like the 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.480 best time to figure out about the problem with that, 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.880 especial when you're working in brick you're our stone. So 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.360 finally those city engineers decided that to handle the flooding, 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:09.880 they were just going to have to raise the streets. 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.080 I mean, easy peasy, right, Not so much, But they 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.760 started this massive undertaking in the nineties, and they did 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.400 it by building these retaining walls that were just a 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.880 few feet beyond the existing buildings, and then they would 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.280 backfill between the walls and then pave the new raised 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.760 surface as a road. This is the really crazy part. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.840 I mean, as as if that doesn't sound range enough, 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.839 the city ran out of money before sidewalks could be completed, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.560 so in a lot of areas you ended up with 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.520 this bizarre situation where you had a road with two 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.000 deep channels running on either side. So if you wanted 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.280 to cross the street, you might just imagine yourself walking 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.920 out of a building. You're immediately face to face with 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.800 a retaining wall, and then you turn walk in this 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.600 little channel between the building and the retaining all until 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.720 you got to a ladder. You would climb the ladder, 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:06.120 according to Ken van Vechten in the l a time, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.520 somewhere as high as thirty five ft tall. I mean, 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.120 don't buy too many supplies while you're out shopping, and 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:15.360 then when you finally got to the top of the ladder, 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.760 you could cross the street do it all again. It 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.520 sounds like a chore, yeah, but I bet you stay 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:26.280 in pretty good shape. Some vertical exercise from time to time. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.520 It took an entertainment tax on vice to raise enough 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:35.160 money for sidewalks, though these weren't just backfilled like the streets. Instead, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.920 arches were built between the buildings and the retaining walls, 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:42.920 with sidewalk roofs built on top. So for years people 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.480 continued to use the underground storefronts and sidewalks until disease 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.120 finally made it unsafe. And I think that is even 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.240 stranger than the previous scenario I was describing that you 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.880 would just have a two level sidewalk, essentially in two 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.000 levels of storefronts. Yeah, it sounds more complicated to me. It, yes, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.760 you'd be I can imagine getting directions for a store 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:05.720 and you're out on the street looking for it, and 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.040 then you're like, oh, man must be in the lower level. 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:14.400 Um okay. So Seattle, Washington certainly a strange entry on 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:19.120 our list, and obviously, um the city's underground was the 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.160 accidental result of handling a problem, certainly not anything the 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.840 engineers set out to do. But the next entry on 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:33.120 our list was an underground city that was very much intentional. Yeah. Actually, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.480 out of all the entries on this list, it might 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:40.440 be the most legitimate underground city. So it's darren cooy 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.640 You and it's in Turkey's historical Cappadocia region. Cappadocia has 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:50.079 this really unusual terrain. Ancient volcanoes plus erosion has created 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:55.520 strange conical mountains sometimes called fairy chimneys. And because like Petra, 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.520 this region was once a trading hot spot, and because 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.760 the rock is soft, it also has a lot of 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.720 caves and underground areas which are perfect for avoiding looters 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:07.439 and raiders if you are looking to do that from 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.920 ancient merchant. So according to Travel Weekly, there are more 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.600 than forty underground cities in the region, with darren coo 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.800 You being the largest. It was discovered in nineteen sixty 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.680 three when a home renovation uncovered a hidden passage and 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.719 it led to a thirteen story deep city with a 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.600 room for up to twenty thousand people. Well with a 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.199 series of rooms I mean just endless chambers and chambers 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.520 and tunnels and passageways and and really not just living 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:39.720 areas either. There were stables for livestock, line presses, storerooms 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.560 I mean literally an underground city, numerous ventilation shafts to 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.880 keep the city safe and and keep the air healthy 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:54.480 and kind of ominously. Uh. These one thousand pound stone doors. Uh, 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.360 they look like they'd be out of a cartoon or something, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:02.480 I mean, giant stone wheel. The apparently one person could 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:06.640 move by himself, although they could only be moved from 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.959 the inside only, so trying to keep somebody out of 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:14.679 the underground city. Um. Most historians believe that this Darren 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.680 cool you was built by Phrygians and about eight hundred BC. 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.640 Others think it's older than that, in fact, much older, 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.440 and was built by Zoroastians in this sort of Noah 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:31.400 esque type undertaking to protect the chosen during a great disaster. 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.000 And I checked out a History Channel segment on it 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.920 and was even treated to some pretty fun theories. I mean, 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.160 you've got to have amazing theory like this if you're 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:44.840 gonna be talking about underground cities, right, Uh, involving extraterrestrials, 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:50.080 both as engineers planning the place and invaders who necessitated 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.720 it being built in the first place. This reminds me 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.480 of that South Park episode where they watched the History 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.000 Channel to find out about the First Thanksgiving and it's 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:03.880 all about extra terrestrials, but just an aside, it's regardless 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.880 of who built it, it's a pretty impressive thing, and 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.520 I definitely encourage you guys to look up a map 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.360 of it. That sort of helps provide the scale we're 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.120 talking about. I mean, if twenty people doesn't already do 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.760 the trick. So the next city on our list is 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.000 kind of the quintessential underground city, not only for its 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:27.480 expansiveness but for its still unrevealed mysteries. It's Paris, which 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:32.920 is filled with subway sewers, quarries, reservoirs, crips, and wine cellars. 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:35.400 And once you look at a map of underground Paris, 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.880 it's actually kind of amazing that the city doesn't just collapse, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.199 something that is actually sometimes kind of a problem. Has 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:47.640 this disturbed me, Sorr, I learned about that. But Paris buildings, 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.880 many of which are of course built of limestone, give 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.080 a little bit of a clue about what's actually underneath Paris, 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.840 or what used to be underneath Paris. More limestone of course, 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.840 plus jeps them and a long time of the quarries 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.880 were built far outside of the city, so it wasn't 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.640 like there was a danger of massive stone buildings falling 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.240 into empty quarries um. But eventually development caught up and 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.320 new buildings would be placed over minds and quarries that 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.120 had just been abandoned or filled with rubble, and nobody 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.760 had a really good sense of where all this stuff 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.640 was under the city and what was being built over it, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.040 and how stable everything was. And after the city's first 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.920 major collapse in seventeen seventy four was followed quickly by 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.560 a few other collapses, and Louis the sixteenth brought in 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:42.160 an architect named Charles axel Mo to map the quarries, 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.640 trying to figure out where everything was underground and come 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:49.720 up with a plan to stabilize the city. Conveniently, though, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.440 this was around the same time Louie was ordering that 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.840 paris Is overflowing cemeteries be emptied. And I went off 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:01.680 on a research tangent on these gross cemeteries too. I mean, yikes, 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:09.560 really really bad charnel houses, just rotten ball grounds of cemetery. Um. 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.000 So they had a problem, all these all these bodies 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:15.240 to deal with, what to do with with all the bones? 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.600 You know, people couldn't live in these areas anymore near 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:21.280 the cemetery. So the solution was to put them in 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.040 some of the old tunnels. So that's how the Paris 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:30.560 Catacombs came. About six million dead are interred within the 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:34.680 Paris Catacombs. Um, I mean probably most folks know this already, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.840 but there of course not named in any way. They're 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:43.360 not um grouped even as entire skeletons, just bone piles. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:47.600 Some of them are around one thousand, two hundred years old. 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:53.240 Pretty amazing fact. Um. I do think it's noted what 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.320 cemetery they came from though, so that's one little nod 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.920 to their original burial spot. So that was the most 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.480 famous result probably of GMO's work. But they also made 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.520 a lot of progress as far as engineering and mapping 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.480 the tunnels goes, and the departments set up to examine 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.760 the tunnels still exists today. And just a side note 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:15.640 here which might be a scary thought for a lot 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.640 of people, there are still cavens, though there hasn't really 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.680 been a big one since nineteen sixty one. The maps 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.640 drawn by GIMMO also serve as the basis for underground 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.800 exploration today by people who are known as catophiles. According 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:33.080 to Neil Shay in National Geographic some of these cataphiles 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:37.120 are casual explorers who enter stewers or old utility tunnels 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.880 to paint or even just to hang out. Others who 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.280 are actually trained explorers, who go as far as underground 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.720 diving to examine unknown parts of the map, which sounds 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.280 so terrifying. I mean, you're already underground, it's dark, their wrath, 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:53.720 their roaches, and then you dive into a pit of 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.720 black water. No thanks, yeah, I'll skip it. So to 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:02.840 combat the catophile, Paris has a special police unit which 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.720 we mentioned in intro. We did mention that, and and 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.920 it's interesting too. The I think it's the habitation of 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.679 these tunnels which make underground Paris so fascinating. You know 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:16.919 that they're not just completely abandoned. Um. One of the 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:21.080 most interesting points to me was that during the war, 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.520 of course, some of these old quarries were used by 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.560 resistance fighters, some were used as Nazi bunkers, um. But 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.399 just for normal sort of pursuits too, I mean, not 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.480 hunkering down. For example, farmers would grow mushrooms and them 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:42.879 because you know, perfect dark, chili wet environment, good for 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.719 growing your market mushrooms, you know, not too close to 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:50.240 the catacombs. I hope. I hope not always watch your vegetables. 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.280 I guess, I guess. So that's the lesson to this story. Yes, 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.320 that's the one. So like Paris, New York City is 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.040 another city that's really famous for its under round, its sewers, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.080 its subway and so on. But for this we're going 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.440 to keep it really specific and talk about something called 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.080 Track sixty one, which once symbolized the height of luxury 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.520 in the city. It didn't start that way, though, No, 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.720 it really didn't. The original Grand Central Depot was a 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.200 as you would imagine, a large train station built all 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.720 above ground, the station, the tracks, the train yard, the 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.760 whole deal. But between nineteen o three and nineteen thirteen, 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.919 according to Joseph Brennan and Columbia University, the railway and 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:36.600 the terminal moved largely underground. You know, this massive construction project, 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.720 which of course opened up all this valuable real estate 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.240 at street level. So the Waldorf His Historia Hotel and 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.120 one of the most famous luxury hotels out there for 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:50.920 anybody who's not in the know already, was built on 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.119 one of these auctioned off lots between nineteen nine and 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:58.040 nineteen thirty one, and it was built right above railway 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.359 sidings underneath and and shortly for the hotel's construction, and 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.960 this is an important note for for what's actually under 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.439 the hotel. Some electrical buildings had stood on the site, 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.000 and one of them had necessitated an underground loading platform 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.879 that was located by the sighting. So it wasn't a 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:19.040 train station, so to speak, but there was a platform 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.919 that existed underneath underneath the Walldor Historia. So eventually the 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.400 hotel repurposed this old platform for its guests who were 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.719 lucky enough to have their own private railway cars. You 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.719 could basically exit your car and be whisked up by 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:38.200 elevator to the hotel. FDR notably used the secret entrance 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.800 for campaign stop, and the station is now in disrepair, 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.800 but it did have one last hurrah when Andy Warhol 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.720 held his underground party. There not too many people with 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.679 private rail cars these days, I guess. Nope, So a 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.800 special train terminal sounds kind of nice, or a train 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.320 station a private train station you're in private car, um 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.760 it really sound is pretty lovely. But the next entry 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.320 on our list is more on the disturbing dark side 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.960 of underground life, and it's in Portland, Oregon. Of all places. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:14.440 Underneath Old Town and Chinatown you'll find shafts and tiny 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:19.080 rooms and tunnels that all hint at a very dark 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:23.480 maritime past that happened in the city in the nineteenth century. 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.000 Ship captains would have trouble finding enough crewmen for these 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:33.440 multi year, very difficult voyages, and so unscrupulous Portlanders or 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.600 if that's what you call people who live in Portlands, 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:40.000 they would fill the demand for for these crewmen by 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:45.280 opening up pubs, drugging able bodied patrons and then dropping 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.560 them through trapdoors in the floor that were called dead falls. 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:53.600 After that, you know, after the these unsuspecting patrons would 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:58.560 awake in some creepy underground chamber. Uh, they would be 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.280 eventually taken down onto the docks sold to captains for 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.440 as much as fifty dollars ahead, which was a tidy 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.800 profit for the bar owners um At the time, it 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.760 was called being shanghaied or or crimping, and that's why 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.600 still today the tunnels are called Shanghai tunnels. This was 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.880 one that was a listener suggestion. Actually, I think the 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.800 the lady had gone on one of these Portland Shanghai 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.000 tunnel tours was quite impressed by it. Do you have 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:30.680 to go through the trapdoors? Tunnels have a little drop, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.520 Maybe it'll be like Seattle and you climbed down a latter. 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:38.960 So for the last spot on this list, we gave 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.359 it to an underground city that extends layer by layer, 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.240 deeper and deeper into the past, and that's of course Rome. 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.840 A visitor to rome In described that if a man 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.480 happened to dig on his property, he might easily uncover 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.919 a column upright and extending from deep below ground, and 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.400 even as far back as the classical period in Roman 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.679 architects would raise the surface level by just taking the 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.800 roofs off of old buildings, back filling them and starting 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.680 new on top. The Great Fire of a D. Sixty 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:14.000 four s entire neighborhoods buried, and natural erosion buried low 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.359 lyne areas in the Middle Ages. So this is a 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:20.720 little different from some of the other underground cities we've discussed, 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.639 and that it wasn't necessarily intentional. I mean it was intentional, 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.240 but it's just building on top of trash the year 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:32.439 after year, and um churches especially are prime spots to 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:37.199 find these layers of history underground. According to Tom Mueller 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.640 in the Atlantic and that's partly because the ancient churches 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.639 were built on pagan temples, you know, to try to 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:46.720 completely erase them, but keep people coming back to their 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:51.720 familiar worship location. Um. He used the example of San Clemente, 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:54.800 which is near the coliseum, where there is a twelveth 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.120 century church that sits on top of a fourth century 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.600 church that sits on top of first century apartments, and 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.919 a temple which sits on top of a building that 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:09.960 was destroyed in the fire. And then crazy, there's still 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.200 something else below that because they can tell the walls 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:15.760 keep on extending. It just hasn't been excavated yet. Um. 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:18.159 According to Mueller, though, there is a lot that's just 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.080 under regular buildings too. And I've always read that building 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:24.520 projects in Rome are kind of a nightmare because you 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:26.680 just dig down a little bit and you've got to 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:32.480 call the archaeologists, and because you've uncovered some priceless find. 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:37.439 But apparently many apartment dwellers are aware, you know, especially 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:39.440 if they've lived in the place for a long time, 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.760 their families have lived there, they know of some trap 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:45.680 door and the apartment basement or something like that will 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:50.680 that will lead to old grapes or old villas or whatnot. 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:53.720 Pretty interesting stuff. Sounds like we could do an entire 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:56.120 episode on Haunted Rome or something. I think we could 0:23:56.119 --> 0:23:57.960 definitely do that, And that's one of the reasons why 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:00.800 I didn't put London on the Short Lived too, because 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:06.640 another city with great underground culture, um Rome. I've got 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:08.920 to experience a little bit of underground realm. When I 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:12.880 visited after college. I went to the Captain Monastery, which 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:15.960 has all of the I've probably mentioned this on the 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:22.000 podcast before. It has the bones arranged into these terrifying 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:25.480 I guess baroque sort of designs. I mean, it's very 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:28.520 beautiful on the one hand, but a little bit disturbing 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.639 to a little bit scary. But I think that just 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:34.520 I mean, you mentioned London, and it just shows how 0:24:35.160 --> 0:24:38.679 much potential I guess there is to talk about some 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:42.040 more of these underground cities and areas of cities. Certainly 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:45.080