On 6/19/55, 65 years ago #OTD, subway service on the 0.9-mile underground Red Car tunnel in #DTLA (open since 1925) ended. The next underground train will not run for another 13,025 days when the @metrolosangeles Blue Line's Flower St. tunnel opened on 2/14/91.
#PacificElectric

The #PacificElectric tunnel, known as the "Hollywood Subway," was a $1.25M facility for the Red Cars to bypass #DTLA street traffic & speed up travel times for the trains. It cost $1.25M & the tunnel, which ran from 2nd & Beverly to 4th & Hill, took 19 months to build.

The #PacificElectric Hollywood Subway was named due to most of its routes heading to or through #Hollywood, despite not actually going there. It was also envisioned as a trunk for a larger PE subway system that never materialized. The tunnel opened on Dec 1, 1925.

In addition to #Hollywood-bound service, it was also the terminus for the PE's Glendale-Burbank line. In 1940, the G-B line featured the new streamlined "PCC" streetcars, a semi-standard design for streetcars nationwide introduced in the late 1930s.

On the #Glendale- #Burbank line, the PE cars left the tunnel near 2nd & Berverly and ran north on Glendale Bl though #EchoPark.

They continued up through Glendale Bl through Edendale through the hills past Allesandro St, where the 2 Freeway terminates today.

The Glendale-Burbank line continued along the hills paralleling Riverside Drive along today's Corralitas @RedCarProperty near #SilverLake. From there, it traversed a viaduct over Fletcher Dr. The foundation pilings of the viaduct are still visible on the hill slopes today.

The Glendale-Burbank line crossed the #LARiver on a bridge towards #AtwaterVillage. The abutments remained after the 1955 closure and in January 2020 was re-purposed to support a new bicycle-pedestrian bridge.

The line continued up Glendale Bl through #AtwaterVillage (just "Atwater" back then), crossed the Southern Pacific RR tracks & went up Brand Bl in #Glendale. Leslie Combs Brand was a land developer who convinced Henry Huntington to build a streetcar line through #Glendale.

Veering NW along the median of Glenoaks Bl, the line continued on to the city of #Burbank, originally ending at Eton Dr. In 1940, the line was cut short and terminated at Glenoaks & Cypress until its closure 65 years ago today.

It's so hard
To say goodbye
To yes-ter-daaaaayyy...

Post-1955, the #PacificElectric tunnel became temporary storage for the PCC cars before they were sold to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It also became a cold war-era Civil Defense shelter. In the '70s it was permanently cut to build the foundation of the Westin Bonaventure Hotel.

The Militant may or may not have spelunked inside the #PacificElectric tunnel himself. If he did, it may or may not have been muddy, damp, dark and looked a little something like this:

The #PacificElectric tunnel was also partially cut in the 1980s to make the foundation of the @USBankTower. The terminal end of the tunnel is still intact as well as the Subway Terminal Building, repurposed in 2005 as the @Metro217LA Apartments.

The opposite end of the tunnel was sealed in 2007 to make way for, coincidentally, another apartment complex - Belmont Station, built in front of the tunnel on the former Toluca Yard site. The power substation remains & a Red Car mural appears on the wall covering the tunnel.

In case you're new to The Militant, in 2015 he made an epic interactive map of all #PacificElectric passenger routes and catalogued all known surviving infrastructure & vehicles, as well as Red Car-inspired public art. Check it, yo: http://militantangeleno.blogspot.com/2015/11/pacific-electric-week-militants-pacific.html