A History Rich with Legends

A History Rich with Legends. . , No interesting place exists for any period of time without its own legends. For 25th Street, the most popular legends center around its tunnels, supposedly constructed by Chinese railroad workers between 1870 and 1890 for use as hidden opium dens., Over time, the tunnels were said to have been important routes for moving goods- both legal and illegal to buildings on both sides of the street and to Union Station. It was said a person could travel the length of the street without seeing daylight. Sections of the tunnels were described as havens for gambling, drinking and drug use, and in some cases, areas of imprisonment., Beneath the Surface , There are people alive today who claim that as youths they actually laid eyes on the basement doors opening into the tunnels from various buildings along 25th Street. Some recall using the tunnels to deliver newspapers when the weather was bad. Some tried to explore the legendary passages, heading in 100 or 200 feet until it was too dark to see any farther - or in some instances, the tunnel had collapsed in front of them. , Of course, most legends interweave fact and fiction. In this case, some buildings on 25th Street really were (and are) interconnected at the basement level, particularly when one person owned two side-by-side buildings. These below-grade connections created efficiencies of space., And So the Truth Remains a Mystery , In some areas along 25th Street, space under the sidewalk was indeed connected. It was common for basements to extend under sidewalks for use as storage or delivery areas. During Prohibition, some such connections were used to quickly move illegal beverages between buildings before police raids occurred or they simply led into a gambling room., However, during the many construction projects conducted along 25th Street over the years, there's been no evidence of interconnecting tunnels across the street or any length of interconnected underground areas. Yet the legend lives on. Many still claim to have been in the tunnels personally., (photo caption) A 1927 photo taken at the Marion Hotel (194 25th Street) shows the guardrail and opening to below ground entrances for some of the buildings. These entrances and other underground connections uncovered in the 1981 street reconstruction (shown to the right) keep the tunnel legend alive. , (photo caption) A concrete-filled door opening in the basement of a building along 25th Street, supposedly leading to an interconnecting tunnel.