Monday, December 1, 2014

Downtown Tunnels

Does anyone have any information about a series of tunnels that may or may not exist under downtown Flint?

20 comments:

  1. Has Christopher Wright/Christopher Knight/Johnathan Rand written a Thriller about Flint? It's not listed if he did.

    As far as I know, there are no tunnels as such under Downtown. There were some buildings that had storage areas under the sidewalks, with eisenglass blocks in the sidewalk to let light in from above, including the Milner Arcade. Most cities with tunnels have them for centralized steam heat, such as in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and East Lansing. Some of the Flint schools which don't have much of a basement have tunnels that go under them as part of the Physical Plant. Unclebuck could probably tell us about those.

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    1. They are building tunnels from the fairly new school called the Flint Cultural Academy to outlying buildings of art, music, etc.

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  2. Don Williamson's throne would pivot back on a hinge. It revealed underneath a steep staircase that lead 70 or so steps into the abyss. Deep within this vault lay an altar, lit only by a single candle. Deep red stains marked the cobbled floor of the cavern. If one listened intently the faint screams of chyldren immemorial could be heard.

    Fo real tho- I know there are tunnels under Central/Cultural Center/Parking Lots. Crazies from Oak Grove used to run and scream like well, lunatics throughout them.

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    1. can confirm they exist entrance is the big building by the welding lab

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  3. Who is supposed to have built these tunnels, and for what purpose? Historically there was no central steam heating plant, so the "steam tunnels" explanation that one sometimes hears on older college campuses and in some older Eastern cities doesn't work.

    How would the builders have dealt with the not-very-far-down water table, corresponding to the river level plus flow-slope?

    How would such a system of tunnels have been restored to their intended function, instead of becoming overrun with mold/mildew and dampness-liking vermin, after the 1947 flood temporarily raised the water table by fifteen or twenty feet?

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    1. Who builds tunnels? Satan worshipers. For what purpose? Ritual worship of Satan.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeon_Master

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVweJZp6elI

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  4. The only tunnels of any kind under downtown Flint that I know of for SURE are the ones in the City Hall complex, which connect several of the buildings, including City Hall and the one over by the Fire Department (where building codes is/was?). I have heard of tunnels that exist(ed) between the Halo Burger in downtown on Saginaw Street, that went from the warehouse to the basement of the restaurant, with the warehouse being where many barrels of the ginger ale syrup were stored to age. HTH.

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  5. there was some talk about flint tunnels on
    skyscraper forum a few years back. The purple cow from the sign on the Durant was in the basement at the end of one of them. made me want to do some urban exploration. Another forum about Detorit???can't call it up...

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  6. There is a tunnel running under Court St between the jail and circuit court

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  7. Early on a winters morn I spied through a grate in the sidewalk at the northeast corner of Kearsley and Harrison a bit of a lighted room with concrete walls and a fifty-five gallon drum.
    A U of M-Flint employee said it is a vault belonging to Consumers and not connected to the University's utility tunnels.

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  8. BornAndRaisedDowntown48503December 17, 2014 at 8:45 AM

    As Magister Hoyes has commented, any kid who went to Whittier and/or Central knows about the tunnels from the schools to the other college/cultural buildings. I graduated from Central in 97 and even we knew about those tunnels. The wood and metal shop teachers would always tell stories about those tunnels. Weird things have happened down there. I do know one of the tunnels use to stretch across Longway to Kearsley Park but was blocked off when the pool was done away with.

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  9. I know for a fact that there are tunnels under flint. Flint has a civil defense shelter/s under a section of buildings. I’m not sure if there are more than the one shelter and I don’t know if they all connect. But I have been in this one section though, so I know they exist. How we accessed it was through a small door, deep in a basement parking garage, in a building that I won’t disclose. The parking garage was closed off and not used. It is flooded and you have to scurry around a ledge that is about 2 feet wide about 150 feet to the back of this old room. That’s where there is a regular door that isn’t locked or anything. You just go in and there is a ton of hallways and rooms that seem to go on forever. . It was very scary and dark and we saw some pretty scary stuff down there. It looked as if people were doing séances or something evil. We came across a room with a pentagram drawn on the floor and burnt candles at the tips of the pentagram. That’s when we high tailed it back out of there. I almost went back down there about 15 years ago but I chickened out. Now I no longer have access to the building. But I would like to know more about Flint underground myself. I’ve seen photos with civil defense shelter signs on them, so I believe that there is more ways to access it though other buildings.

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  10. Flint Journal did an article on the subject:

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  11. There may be tunnels in Flint, but the story seems to be an urban legend, at least if it is as extensive as some have suggested. Some of this seems to be getting conflated with a story about a bunker found in Germany by children playing in the woods last year. The most likely explanation is that it was a bunker where nuclear weapons research was being done by Germany during World War II. If you want to find it, search for something like "hidden German bunker found". There is an image gallery that sounds a lot like the creepy post about pentagrams and such. If you are prone to nightmares, you may want to avoid the picture gallery. If you want a lighter treatment of hidden bunkers in Germany, watch "Hogan's Heroes" episodes. In most episodes, Hogan makes out with a cute young woman, and the tunnels aren't nearly as scary looking.

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  12. I seem to recall that when the Palace Theatre was torn down to make room for the Univeristy of Michigan Flint campus a number of brick-lined tunnels were uncovered. These were identified as part of an old plant for manufacturing natural gas. The Flint Journal ran an article about them, though I regret to say I don't recollect the year (sometime in the 1980'sor 90's I suspect).

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  13. As a kid, lurking and exploring the bowels of St. Paul's Church, I heard there were tunnels going under Saginaw street connecting St. Paul's to First Presbyterian across the street. I never saw any tunnels, however.

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  14. There are tunnels under Flint. From 91 to 92 I worked for the University of Michigan-Flint Police Dept. There are many steam tunnels going across the campus, but there are also some extremely long extremely dark tunnels that deaden after 200 to 300 yards. Some had locked doors at the end with an elevated platform. There are old civil defense signs down there. One in particular runs from the parking garage for staff near the old CROB and runs parallel to the Murchie Science building. Then there are off shoots of the main tunnel that descend for a long way and have buzzard features inside them. There are steel ladders on the wall that ascend into just a concrete ceiling? One goes a long way down at a out 5% grade and runs forever until you reach a elevated platform in which you have to use the steel ladder to climb up on top. There is a locked door that I did not have the key to access it. However, when you would tap on the door one could tell that there was another hallway/large empty room/etc on the otherside. I have always wondered what was beyond the door. My girlfriend at the time, Catherine Huegener was freaked out and didn't want to venture down there anymore. Going and exploring the tunnel system was a great way to pass a boring night doing building patrol on 2nd shift on a Saturday night.

    I'm not sure if the part time student PSO have access to that anymore. It was a different time back then. I do miss it.

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  15. I am interested in tunnels under Flint Central High School..a guy I know who works for a company that assesses damage on schools told me about it.

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  16. I am wondering if Anyone knows about the Company. Palace Ranchome corporation. Flint Michigan. They built Trailers I have a rare 195040' from there but can not find any information on the manufacturer of the trailer. These History pieces that have already lasted so long represent an era Id love to give the Factory and the town it's recognition . Anyone can point me in the right direction.or share stories??.whitehorselady1@gmail.com

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.