Hill Street Tunnels

The area known today as Civic Center was a lot hillier than it is today. There were two forks of Bunker Hill north of First Street which ran east as far as Main Street. This resulted in a completely different street pattern than we have today. Roads and later the horse car and street car lines went around the hills to avoid steep grades. Such was the case on Hill Street. The hill north of First Street was steep.

The map shows the arrangement of tracks in 1925. Spring Street north of First runs diagonally to the corner of Temple and Main. Hill Street is shown as running through but between First and Temple and between Temple and Sunset the tracks run in tunnels. Autos used a parallel tunnel between First and Temple and went over the hill from Temple to Sunset

The Los Angeles Pacific, which became part of the Pacific Electric, operated trains from Hollywood to Los Angeles via Sunset, Main, and Spring to a station at 4th Street. Originally, the LAP was 3'-6" gauge and used the tracks of the Los Angeles Railway in the downtown area. When it was decided to make the line standard gauge, they decided to build two tunnels. Tunnel No. 1 ran from First Street to Temple St. Tunnel No. 2 ran from Temple Street to Sunset Blvd under Fort More Hill emerging about half a block west of Hill Street between Hill and Grand. It should be remembered that this is not the current Hill Street. That street was then known as Castellar.

The tunnels opened for service in 1909. After that, LAP and later PE cars ran through the tunnels from Sunset to Hill and then south on Hill. Los Angeles Railway cars, on the other hand, went around the hill via First, Broadway, and Temple.

Later the city built a vehicular tunnel next to Tunnel No. 1.

Finally, in 1939, Tunnel No. 1 was dual gauged. Effective July 16th, three lines began using the tunnel. Line "A - WEST ADAMS AND EDGEMONT ROAD LINE" and Line "L - WEST ELEVENTH AND WEST TEMPLE STREET LINE" came through the tunnel and then to the west on Temple. Line "2 - GRIFFITH AVENUE AND CROWN HILL LINE" came through the tunnel and then to the east on Temple.

The photo below shows the view looking north from above Tunnel No. 1. In this view the tracks south of Temple are dual gauged. Lines "A" and "L" turned left at Temple Street. Line "2" turned right at Temple Street. The old route on Temple is also shown as are the tracks which ran north from Temple on Hill to California Street and then west. The road south of Temple leads to the Hill Street vehicular tunnel.

Tunnel No. 1 became a vehicular tunnel in 1951. It was eventually removed in 1955 when the hill was cut down. Tunnel No. 2 was partially removed in 1951 as part of the Hollywood Freeway construction.

The hill above the south portal of Tunnel No. 1 was used by Harold Lloyd for some of his comedies - Look Out Below (1918), High and Dizzy (1920), Never Weaken(1921), and others. He built sets on top of the hill and positioned the camera to look down on Hill Street below. Thus scenes which appeared to be done at great heights were actually only a few feet off the ground. You can see streetcars moving along Hill Street in the background.

South Portal of Tunnel No. 1

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