The Trolley Tunnel Sealed Beneath Downtown LA for Decades

Near the corner of Second Street and Glendale Boulevard, there's a sealed concrete portal most people walk past without a second glance. It's not a maintenance entrance. It's the mouth of a subway tunnel that once moved up to 20 million passengers a year — decades before most American cities had anything like it. In this video, we trace how the Belmont Tunnel let Los Angeles's Red Cars bypass downtown traffic starting in 1925, why the city abandoned and sealed it just thirty years later, how it became one of LA's most iconic graffiti and film locations in the decades that followed, and why the city eventually spent billions rebuilding a subway under many of the same streets. Forgotten Los Angeles uncovers the hidden history buried beneath the city everyone thinks they already know — the buildings, tunnels, neighborhoods, and landmarks that time (and development) paved over. Subscribe for more forgotten LA history every week. #ForgottenLosAngeles #BelmontTunnel #LAHistory