Nearly 70 years before the Red Line subway began whisking passengers under the Civic Center, Los Angeles was already a city with tunnel vision.
Beneath the busy streets of the City of the Angels is a complex network of pedestrian tunnels that stretch several blocks from Spring and Temple streets to 1st Street and Grand Avenue.
One of the tunnels existed in the early 20th century, connecting a long-gone county jail to a demolished red-sandstone county courthouse.
The surviving passageways run under a clutch of government buildings -- the Hall of Justice, the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, the Hall of Records and the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
In their time, the tunnels have been used for the secret transportation of mobsters, murderers and more than a billion dollars in cash.
They have been designated as fallout shelters and homeless shelters -- for bombing that never happened and for the homeless who were invited in for a few nights during the rains of 1987.
The tunnels have served as a backdrop for movies, including "Ali," "JFK," and "Legally Blonde 2," and as the final resting place for files in the county archives.
Government employees sometimes jog through the lighted tunnels during lunchtime, and officials move documents and equipment through the tunnels on golf carts.
The tunnels also afford government employees the luxury of strolling from building to building below the hubbub of the streets.
While Los Angeles mobster Mickey Cohen was on trial for tax evasion in 1951, he was hustled from the cells in the Hall of Justice through a tunnel under Spring Street to the federal courthouse. Jimmy Lee Smith and Gregory Powell, who were ultimately convicted of the notorious "Onion Field" killing of a Los Angeles policeman, a crime documented in a bestselling book and a movie, were also ferried through the tunnel. For pretrial motions in the 1960s, they were shackled and escorted from the Hall of Justice to the old Hall of Records one street away.
"These tunnels are one of our city's hidden treasures, but you can't see them by car, you've got to get out and walk," said Evelyn Tapia, 71, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley's receptionist.
Tapia, who recently walked the L.A. Marathon route in 8 hours, 7 minutes and 47 seconds, runs and walks the tunnels when it rains.
