Subterranean Philly: What Lies Beneath

This tour is a miscellany of anything and everything that’s below the surface of Philadelphia, the tunnels and subway stations, basements, concourses, sewers and utility lines that form an underground city beneath our feet.

We’ll travel along various sub-terrestrial passageways as we trace underground transportation’s influence on Philadelphia’s growth and development–and examine the visionary ideas that never came to fruition.

***PLEASE NOTE THAT WE WON’T BE ENTERING ANY AREAS CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC!***

However, we have tracked down the history of pretty much all of the abandoned tunnels and ghost stations those unrealized plans left behind and have found rare images to show you what they look like. We’ll dig into the big questions, such as: Why does Philly have so few subway lines? Plus, we’ll answer a host of small ones, like: What happened to “The Greatest Subway Station in the World”? Why is there an abandoned tunnel and station under Arch Street? And what surprise did engineers discover when they started digging under City Hall?

Starting point: Northwest corner of 8th and Market
Ending Point: SEPTA headquarters, 1212 Market Street

Questions, concerns, conundrums? Email Hidden City project director Pete Woodall at pwoodall@hiddencityphila.org or call him at 267-259-7112.

Tour guide JENNA HORTON (she/her) has lived in Philadelphia since 2009. She works as a freelance performer with companies ranging from experimental to traditional, but maintains a penchant for the former. She also worked as a tour guide in Philadelphia’s history district for six years, and is currently writing a new tour in response to that experience. For more information, visit her website at jennahorton.com.