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The Thing On The Doorstep
Gender: Male Total Likes: 0 likes
| | | Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. < Reply # 406 on 1/3/2006 7:31 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Hello, this is my first post. I'm interested in Victoria's history, its underground and its abandoned buildings and I might have some exciting oportunities soon. I own a business on Johnson Street with a basement. At the far end of the basement is a door leading under the street. The building is from 1892 and, like the Empress Hotel picture above, this room has a bricked off doorway at the back of it that I've been seriously considering bashing through. It may not take me into a tunnel per se, but at least it will be an adventure. Has anyone been into the parkade on Broad Street? It's the one that now has an electric gate (across from the television station)? Ten years ago, when my curiosity was at a high, I wandered through the parkade and out the back, where it doubled back underneath itself to a sub basement parkade with the most amazing series of arches leading directly under Broad Street. The arches, like these mysterious doors, were boarded off from the other side. My memery isn't too great as to whether they were bricked off or boarded, but they were big enough arches for, say, horses and carriages to fit through. I have lots more to talk about if anybody cares. I hate being new to boards when I'm uninvited, but shall I go on?
[last edit 1/3/2006 7:43 PM by The Thing On The Doorstep - edited 1 times]
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| The Thing On The Doorstep
Gender: Male Total Likes: 0 likes
| | | Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. < Reply # 412 on 1/3/2006 9:23 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | I sure thought it was cool. Oh, and I read earlier posts from people discussing the building in Chinatown that has recently been half torn down. I'd like to add my thoughts to this topic. Last January I met a fellow who said he could get me inside it, so I took him up on the offer immediately. I didn't have steel-toed boots or a flashlight, but I went with him and his torch. We crawled up a rickety ladder to a fence bordering the parking lot (now a construction site) and we made it onto the roof from there. I remember almost slipping thirty feet to my death. It was five PM, rainy and dark. At the top of the slanted roof, there were some windows we got into and down a lattice of two-by-fours into the disgusting, wet and rotting, once-burned out ruins of this 19th Century Chinese tenement. Squatters had surely been there many times, but needles weren't a concern. I remember the graphitti " Welcome to our Hell" written on the wall. There was a moment when I thought I was being lead into a trap by this guy, but curiosity got the best of me. We crawled through a dark wooden tunnel that an average adult male would have been wedged into. I'm pretty skinny, so I managed to squeeze through the four or five feet without getting too claustraphobic. Anyways, the tunnel came out through the cupboard under a sink in a kitchen! The room was nice and livable (compared to where we just came from) and is interesting because it helps solidify the stories about the Chinatown escape routes and such that I've heard about. The building is now mostly destroyed (except for the front facade on Cormorant (Pandora) and from what I've heard, a former Vancouver Canuck owns the property (and the vacant lot beside it). Something called "Bamboo" is being built there maybe? A condo? An interesting note is that in 1913 a famed American barnstormer and aviation pioneer named John Milton Bryan crashed his airplane into the building that once occupied the vacant lot. He became the first airplane fatality in Canadian history.
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| KublaKhan
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland Total Likes: 207 likes
With Satan, it's always gimmie, gimmie.
| | | Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. < Reply # 415 on 1/4/2006 12:26 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by The Thing On The Doorstep Hello, this is my first post. I'm interested in Victoria's history, its underground and its abandoned buildings and I might have some exciting oportunities soon. I own a business on Johnson Street with a basement. At the far end of the basement is a door leading under the street. The building is from 1892 and, like the Empress Hotel picture above, this room has a bricked off doorway at the back of it that I've been seriously considering bashing through. It may not take me into a tunnel per se, but at least it will be an adventure. Has anyone been into the parkade on Broad Street? It's the one that now has an electric gate (across from the television station)? Ten years ago, when my curiosity was at a high, I wandered through the parkade and out the back, where it doubled back underneath itself to a sub basement parkade with the most amazing series of arches leading directly under Broad Street. The arches, like these mysterious doors, were boarded off from the other side. My memery isn't too great as to whether they were bricked off or boarded, but they were big enough arches for, say, horses and carriages to fit through. I have lots more to talk about if anybody cares. I hate being new to boards when I'm uninvited, but shall I go on?
| I'm interested.
| "The truth is knowable. But probably not, ever, incontrovertible." --Don DeLillo PICS |
| KublaKhan
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland Total Likes: 207 likes
With Satan, it's always gimmie, gimmie.
| | | Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. < Reply # 416 on 1/4/2006 12:55 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | I'd heard about the coffee shop bench. I might have mentioned it somewhere in this thread. That cemetary marked the limits of Downtown Victoria, and when the city decided to expand it was decided that the bodies buried in that location would have to be moved. I've heard that there were a few mostly potters graves that were left as is, and things were built up over them. Could be true...could be false. but be sure that there was once a graveyard under that coffee place. In other news, I recently spoke with another tunnel dweller (alleged) who claimed to have been through a series of covered paths that went from Broad St. up to Douglas. Apparently, these were original footpaths (the equivaliant of a sidewalk) and were lost when the street level was raised. They are covered now with 4x4 beams covered with what he said was plywood. The sidewalk that we use today is about six inches above that. Or something like that. Anyway, his story corresponds with the old tunnel from the Bay Center. It's been closed off for years. Also, there was a tunnel that ran from the Union Club up to what is now the Strathcona Hotel, which used to be a bordello. This tunnel was destroyed/filled in. Three people have confirmed this story, and their credentials are unimpeachable. There's a coal shute near Steamers Pub that apparently runs from Government St. straight down to Warf St. This tunnel connects every building on that street through a series of small, narrow openings in each basement. Most of these openings were sealed off years ago by the city. One or two building owners have re-opened them, only to discover that the main tunnel is in disrepair and is considered very dangerous. One building owner told me he has heard people talking and stomping around inside this tunnel on many occasions. He can hear them through the barrier that's been set up between his basement and the coal shute. Thing, can you corroborate this?
| "The truth is knowable. But probably not, ever, incontrovertible." --Don DeLillo PICS |
| The Thing On The Doorstep
Gender: Male Total Likes: 0 likes
| | | Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. < Reply # 418 on 1/4/2006 3:48 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Wow! You took a photo under the bench! It was about six months ago that I saw right down into the dirt. I can't tell which bench you lifted, but the one I looked into was the one that would have your back to the till if you were to sit on it. If that's the one you lifted and it's covered over, then I'm sorry to have mislead you. I swear it was open last I looked. As for the street level change, I trust all that is true closer to the water, but where I'm located, it seems to have been the same since at least the late 1870's. My store is on the same block as Blenz. The basement is awesome. What do any of you know about the Morse code on the corners of Broad Street? I'm sure it's common knowledge now, but I'd love to hear more. I know that each intersection on the "new" Broad Street has little patches of code, when transalted using the Morse system, spells out a very confusing poem about such things as gardening and death. Oh, and J. Peterman, I see now that you lifted both benches. Bah! I wanted to crawl down there!
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| meggaman
Location: victoria Gender: Male Total Likes: 2 likes
Hmmm,,what does this button do,,
| | | Re: Under the Garden City: Victoria B.C. secret tunnels. < Reply # 419 on 1/4/2006 6:14 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Im, wondering if this corridor in downtown victoria leads to the tunnels , lots of odd shaped doors ,with big keyholes at the end of it ,and it was starting to get dark out ,,
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