Underground

These glass squares (discolored to purple by the weak Seattle sun) are set in the sidewalks of downtown Seattle.  They provided light down to the cavernous underground tunnels that lie under Pioneer Square.Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour starts with the ominous assertion that Seattle’s founding fathers were “from the Midwest and didn’t know anything about building at sea level.”When the tide would come in, it flooded the streets and pumped the city sewage back into town.The Great Seattle Fire of 1889 gave them a chance to start over when the entire town was burned to the ground.Engineers came up with an elaborate plan to run sewage and water lines down the middle of the road at the old street level.  The new city’s ground floor would be the old city’s second floor!The old, original ground floor storefronts can still be seen.After the streets were filled in, building would use the abandoned underground first floor for storage.During Prohibition, the tunnels were also used by bootleggers.After major earthquakes, debris would often be “swept under the rug” and dumped underground.Graphically, the whole place is like Steampunk heaven.