Mystery location between north and south broad concourse

Hello All.

I was looking through my pictures of the closed North Broad concourse on news that some urban explorers had recently entered and taken pictures.

I noticed I had two pictures that had locations I could not identify.
The captions and signage refer to an underpass between the north and south Broad Street concourses at 15th street. Was this passage destroyed in the construction of Dilworth Plaza or does it still exist?

I think I vaguely remember that area from when I was a kid exploring, and I think it was obliterated by the original Dilworth Plaza construction.

Cheviot wrote:I was looking through my pictures of the closed North Broad concourse on news that some urban explorers had recently entered and taken pictures.

Was this the thread on the Philly subreddit the other day?

Quinn wrote:

Cheviot wrote:I was looking through my pictures of the closed North Broad concourse on news that some urban explorers had recently entered and taken pictures.

Was this the thread on the Philly subreddit the other day?

Yes, it was.

Quinn wrote:

Cheviot wrote:I was looking through my pictures of the closed North Broad concourse on news that some urban explorers had recently entered and taken pictures.

Was this the thread on the Philly subreddit the other day?

What page is that Quinn? Any links?

BuddSilverliner269 wrote:

Quinn wrote:

Cheviot wrote:I was looking through my pictures of the closed North Broad concourse on news that some urban explorers had recently entered and taken pictures.

Was this the thread on the Philly subreddit the other day?

What page is that Quinn? Any links?

http://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/co ... der_broad/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.reddit.com/r/urbanexploratio ... abandoned/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The top picture shows a tunnel that is still there. It does not look like that anymore as it has mechanical and other stuff run through it. The exits are bricked off. I was there a few years ago when they removed a lot of the signage after a fire.

The entrance to that is just to the west of the Ritz Carlton Employee Entrance. It is a set of battered double doors.

It goes under city hall and just ends. It used to go further but it got blocked off by an old construction project. A now gone engineer told me that they realigned (can't remember exactly but I think it was the EL) in the 50's or so. A lot of it is under 2-3' of water, and there are a few open manholes there with a pretty treacherous drop. About 1/3 along the way there are a few ladders that will put you up in the track area under the ell. At the end of the tunnel there is a hole knocked in the wall. If you go through that wall you end up in the track area of the trolley line's original alignment. To the left is a gate to the current trolley line track area. To the right you go along the old track area to a door that lets you out on the westbound MFSE platform near the exit to the BSS line, though this door locks from both sides.

If for some reason that door is ever open I would caution you to never go in there. The footing is horrible, the lighting is bad, the water is deep, and it's really dirty.

It is pretty cool, though I can do without ever going in there again.

The top picture may be of the city hall north Concourse, which was converted to office and shop space for SEPTA use. If I remember correctly, there once was a tunnel joining the North Concourse to the pedestrian tunnel that went all the way to race/vine. That tunnel is still there, but it terminates now at the Municipal Services Building and is closed off to the public.

Rumor has been that Mayor Dilworth used the North Concourse as his secret exit from City Hall. I don't know, wasn't around then.

There is also a South Concourse not in use. As it stands now, the walls are tiled and the letters in the tile say "South Penn" on them. The concourse is rather large, and some of the old wooden rotogates are still in place. There are stairways that go about, but they are all bricked up. Some of the South Mezz was removed and blocked over, but the rest remains locked up.

I was told the concourse was bricked up up when DIlworth Plaza was built.

Some of it was exposed briefly when they were doing DIlworth Plaza. Some of the stairwells have fresh corrugated steel over the top now.

bagelmath wrote:anyone have access to the original plans of the subway and trolleys,plus concourse?

I wish!

lefty wrote: There is also a South Concourse not in use. As it stands now, the walls are tiled and the letters in the tile say "South Penn" on them. The concourse is rather large, and some of the old wooden rotogates are still in place. There are stairways that go about, but they are all bricked up. Some of the South Mezz was removed and blocked over, but the rest remains locked up.

Where is this section of the concourse located? I've never heard of this before.

lefty wrote:The top picture shows a tunnel that is still there. It does not look like that anymore as it has mechanical and other stuff run through it. The exits are bricked off. I was there a few years ago when they removed a lot of the signage after a fire.

The entrance to that is just to the west of the Ritz Carlton Employee Entrance. It is a set of battered double doors.

Is that this tunnel?

lefty wrote:The top picture may be of the city hall north Concourse, which was converted to office and shop space for SEPTA use. If I remember correctly, there once was a tunnel joining the North Concourse to the pedestrian tunnel that went all the way to race/vine. That tunnel is still there, but it terminates now at the Municipal Services Building and is closed off to the public.

Rumor has been that Mayor Dilworth used the North Concourse as his secret exit from City Hall. I don't know, wasn't around then.

There is also a South Concourse not in use. As it stands now, the walls are tiled and the letters in the tile say "South Penn" on them. The concourse is rather large, and some of the old wooden rotogates are still in place. There are stairways that go about, but they are all bricked up. Some of the South Mezz was removed and blocked over, but the rest remains locked up.

I was told the concourse was bricked up up when DIlworth Plaza was built.

Some of it was exposed briefly when they were doing DIlworth Plaza. Some of the stairwells have fresh corrugated steel over the top now.

This map I found shows more detail than I've found on other maps:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/kzr ... ReXCw&dl=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Are the large gray concourses under City Hall the North Broad and unused South Broad concourses that you mentioned?

What about the original tunnel shown in the picture at the very top of the thread? Is it on this map?

One more image. Appears to be the same location from another angle.

Cheviot wrote:
Is that this tunnel?

SEPTA_Abandonned-City-Hall-Concourse.jpg

this tunnel looks to me like one of the two that connected the Market St and the south Broad concourses. One ran south under Juniper St's east side, had a stairway that came to the street in the Wanamaker department store building, curved west under South Penn Square, had another passage into the Widener Building's basement, and joined the Broad St concourse just south of City Hall, just opposite it's counterpart which went south somewhere between 15th St and City Hall, and curved east under South Penn Square, with a stairway in the fire damaged and demolished Meridian tower.
There may have been counterparts on Market St's north side, but the one I remember, whose signs said "City Hall Annex" had, if I remember correctly, a right angle turn around Juniper and Filbert-JFK, rather than the curves in the photo

Cheviot wrote:
Is that this tunnel?

SEPTA_Abandonned-City-Hall-Concourse.jpg

Yes. They got rid of the lights though.