Basking in the glow of traffic
Philip K. Dick fans, get your Blade Runner on and see something truly beautiful by entering the 2nd Street Tunnel in the evening at Figueroa Street and heading east. Watch the red reflections of brake lights illuminate the rainbow-shaped tunnel in a glittering spectacle. In the movie, solitary replicant hunter Rick Deckard drives through the tunnel awash in blue hues, the entrance and exits dripping with the constant acid rain of the futuristic city of Los Angeles.
Although Deckard is a loner, he’s not alone. The white tiles that line the 2nd Street Tunnel and the ability to easily cordon off the area to traffic and lookie-loos have made it a favorite location for car commercials and fashion shoots as well as other films like the notable sci-fi cousins Terminator and Gattica. The tunnel may be one of the most filmed unknown icons in Los Angeles. And it almost didn’t happen.
Info
Address 2nd Street between Figueroa and Hill Streets, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (enter by car from Figueroa Street heading east toward Hill Street for the best view) | Hours Always open. Reflections are most dazzling from dusk to dawn.| Tip The Blue Ribbon Garden atop nearby Disney Concert Hall (111 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012) is almost an acre of tranquility amid the business of Downtown. Enter via the stairs on Grand Avenue near 2nd Street.
Construction began on the 2nd Street Tunnel in 1916. Downtown Los Angeles wasn’t the cluster of emerald skyscrapers it is today. It was Bunker Hill, primarily a residential wealthy suburb of opulent Victorian mansions, which separated Downtown from the rest of Los Angeles. That is, until the tunnel came through. The signature white tiles were sourced from Germany and as anti-German sentiment during World War I grew, so did opposition to using a German product. But the architect of the tunnel stood his aesthetic ground and the tunnel was completed, Teutonic tiles and all. Ironically, many of the wealthy inhabitants of the Bunker Hill enclave began to leave the area as the war came to an end and urbanism encroached on their formerly suburban lifestyle.
Many of the Victorians were later partitioned into apartments, two of which became home to writer John Fante and artist Leo Politi (see p. 126), who both went on to champion the new working class of Bunker Hill in their work.
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