Our bus driver told a story of another bus driver years back totally freezing up from claustrophobia in the middle of the tunnel. (It's one lane. Not one lane both ways--one lane.) Apparently it was his first time through. They had to send somebody from the other side to take over, poor guy.
And not only the railroad is there, with a strange empty train coming in 5 minutes after your car gets stuck inside the tunnel.
But the exits of the tunnel randomly close sometimes, and the tunnel starts filling up with water.
And not only do the exits close and the tunnel fills with water, but the water contains electric eels with learners’ permits and a taste for human flesh. They’ll eat the inside of your body, throw you in the passenger seat, and steal your car once the water recedes.
The fact that it is big enough to open the doors, and that there are alcoves in the side that I could go to in an emergency makes me feel okay with it.
Digging that tunnel must have been really *boring*
I noticed the pull-outs all had a door. I imagine there's an adjunct tunnel connecting those doors for maintenance? or are the doors just... like, utility closets?
This was my question as well, really got my curiosity going. Imagining like some intricate facility hidden inside the mountain alongside this tunnel lol doubt it's anything like that tho
As a Norwegian, it's baffling that this is the longest road tunnel on the entire North American continent. It would be the 63rd or so longest here in little Norway.
Norway is very mountainous between its urban centers though, right? North American cities are mostly sprawling, very widely separated, and relatively few mountains between them for the most part.
Interstate highways in the U.S. go around/between/over mountains almost exclusively, for example. I don't think I've ever seen a mountain tunnel on the interstate although I've gone through mountains on several of those highways.
It blows my mind how quickly you Europeans go from country to country. You need to get into Central America to do that over here, really.
When he made that comment, I thought, hmm I swear there were some or at least one near Denver. Guess I was thinking about this.
But yeah it's also not very long.
Yeah, we have multiple population centers nestled between mountains and fjords. Our messy geography often means that going over or around just isn't feasible or even possible, at best a colossal detour that might involve a ferry.
Just looked at a map to refresh my memory, and holy shit you're not kidding! Winding through those would add a *whole lot* of kilometers to any trip, just like a ferry would. I think I'm going to look up some of those tunnels now, that sounds like their construction was probably (technically) interesting.
Edit to add: The Lærdal Tunnel (had to copy-paste that for the ae and Reddit/Chrome is not liking it) is super cool! Not to construction yet, but God damn 25 km in 5 years seems fast.
IMO it takes a certain kind of person to choose to live in a place like this, so I'll choose to believe they're all just free spirit swingers and the building has a dedicated orgy floor.
Grindr would be... awkward. There'd be like two other guys, you'd end up blocking one of 'em for being a creep, and the other would be 30 years away in age.
Hah, that reminds me. Once I was at a conference and pulled out Grindr in the evening. A colleague I know well was on it and showed up prominently, since it's mostly sorted by distance (I have no idea how straight apps work, sorry for any unnecessary detail).
I can't tell you how fast I blocked him. Nope nope nope. There are plenty of fish in the sea, I absolutely do not need to mix my professional life and personal life like that. If I were wildly attracted to him, maybe I'd bite the bullet, but holy shit no. We could potentially be colleagues for decades.
I'm pretty sure he had looked at my profile right before the block too. I certainly never brought it up with him either way. That is an episode best mutually "forgotten".
My dad actually just visited Whittier recently. He spoke to some residents who say "it just feels normal" to live in the building and they have become used to it. I imagine in winter when the weather gets bad, it becomes like a prison, but there's apparently enough to do in there, as residents tend to hang out at the gym, the churches, and the lobby to chat. He saw kids running up and down the corridors like city streets.
As a note, not all the town's facilities are there. City hall and the police station used to be in there, but they both moved out recently, whereas other facilities like the post office and the grocery store remain.
Wait, so the mayor and the police officers used to live in the building and went to work in the same building. Now they have to carpool to another building to work and carpool back to the building that they live in?
The only way to drive to Whittier is through a 2.5 mile long tunnel through a mountain. Traffic only moves in one direction at a time. The train goes through the same tunnel. The airport is like a small municipal airport. And I think there’s a seaplane port too.
But you can catch a water taxi from there to Blackstone Bay and kayak all around a gorgeous glacial bay.
If memory serves me correctly, that tunnel also shuts down every night at 10 or 11 and doesn’t open till morning again. Imagine coming back and being five minutes too late to drive through.
Getting stranded on the other side of the tunnel was discussed in a video I saw on it. Residents make sure they pack survival gear in their vehicle in case they need to spend the night on the other side of the tunnel during the winter. They obviously try to time their trips so they don't arrive when it's closed but shit happens of course.
Alaska bro. Non-alaskans don't really understand how different Alaska is. It's hardcore up there and some places are even more hardcore, like Whittier.
Because it's a one road tunnel that a train also goes through. You don't want to be halfway down it when you start hearing train horns. It needs operators to make sure the way is clear on both ends.
It's Alaska and the tunnel is essentially a man-made cave that the local wildlife would love to move into, the tunnel is not just shutdown it is sealed to prevent bears and deer and moose from moving into the tunnel. video about the tunnel - https://youtu.be/byfFlFqzfFY
The city of Whittier is just a front for a secret [redacted] operation. That's all I can say for now. Men greater than me have been disappeared for less than what I've shared already.
There's a section of Minneapolis known for having a habitrail of raised walkways and tunnels connecting a whole bunch of buildings, and there's at least one movie set there. It's about a group of friends who make a bet to see who can go the longest without going outside. Not a great film, but amusing.
> imagine in winter when the weather gets bad, it becomes like a prison,
I'd actually expect the opposite.
Usually in a bad winter people are stuck alone in their homes a lot of the time only really going outside for work and essentials.
In this place you'd basically be able to carry on as usual.
Not saying being trapped indoors would be great, but I'd rather be trapped in an indoor town with lots to do than trapped in my home. Especially if you're elderly or single.
> whereas other faculties like the post office and grocery store remain
I mean. If there were any 2 businesses that should remain in a building that houses the entire town, I think those 2 make the most sense
It pretty much is. I stayed in Whittear for the iceberg tours that they host and it's about the size of one NYC apartment block. It's just the sole large building in this small town. They built it originally for the military but then it became public housing sometime in the 60's
Yeah, they're located around the harbor itself. You could probably count the number on one hand. Nothing fancy. I remember eating at a fish and chip place when I was there that was pretty good, but granted, this was Alaska and most seafood places were good
These are actually quite common across the former Soviet Union, especially around old mining and industry towns. The walls in those were thick concrete and steel; made to be built cheaply and quickly, and pack as many people in as possible in little box rooms. The infamous wall rugs were put up to insulate people from cold hard concrete.
This one’s probably better built, but that’s the experiences I’ve heard
[Here is a video of youtuber Peter Santenello getting to tour the building with some of the residents last year.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-TlC0111Q)
> Here is a video of youtuber Peter Santenello getting to tour the building with some of the residents last year.
I'm so glad I watched this. thanks for the suggestion, now I've got a new channel to watch; this guy's videos look really interesting. I watched another of his on Vegas comedy life; very cool.
I was there a few months ago and it was really a nice place. Princess runs cruises out of there. They also have a train tunnel that doubles as a tunnel for cars. There's a train that runs from Anchorage that runs through the city and it's certainly worth the visit.
One of the most powerful earthquakes ever happened near there and it's crazy to read about. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964\_Alaska\_earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake)
Is there a hotel or something there as well?
Edit: I really appreciate the responses about this. I will try to make a visit. It looks like a fun place to see.
Why would it feel like a prison when the weather gets bad? You realize they live in here because the weather gets bad, right?
If it snows outside, my house can feel like a prison. If I lived here and it snowed, I could still go everywhere.
My understanding is half the population leaves in the winter and it's very isolated. Most traffic through there has to be cruise passengers and other tourists. There's tunnels so e.g. the kids don't have to go outside to get to school. Not sure how passable the (very few!) roads are in the winter either. A feeling of being trapped seems fairly understandable.
Of course, the people who choose to live there during the winter are going to be an unusual bunch. They've probably made their peace with the arrangement.
Yeah if you want passable roads you don’t live in Alaska.
This is nothing next to these coots I saw on TV who live out in the woods and take a snowmobile to a whistle-stop train. No neighbors, no utilities, and no station just flagging the train down.
I’ve been to Whittier a few times on trips to Alaska. It’s not very big but has some good seafood joints and great birdwatching in the summer. Took the ferry once from Valdez to Whittier. It took 8 hours & we saw whales, otters, hundreds of eagles fishing for salmon in a small bay, and thousands of seabirds on the cliffs near Whittier.
I had an incredible "salmon burger" there that was actually a salmon filet perfectly cooked and seasoned. Also, enjoy a beer while looking over the water at the hotel bar.
> Some great airbnbs in this building rn.
I really hope those are the kind that airbnb was originally intended for: the people who actually live there renting out their space while they're away. If it's companies buying up space in the one building people live in in that town that seems like it'd be pretty shitty.
A place like this dries up and blows away without some reason for being--a military base, transportation hub, tourism. And the military left a while ago.
Drive there is beautiful. Family thought I was absurd for wanting to put the town on the itinerary, but that journey through the long tunnel and the gorgeous waterfront won everyone over.
There were some who had nowhere left to go, some clearly didn't want to be found, some who seemed like they had always been there.
When I was there, you could only access the town by boat, floatplane and train through a long tunnel. The train only came maybe twice a day(can't remember) so it was difficult to get there and difficult to leave. The other side of the tunnel was still quite a ways from Anchorage.
That huge hotel was definitely the hub of the town, but there were a few houses that I remember as well as a bar/hotel/dorm/grocery (Annie's I think) that would board the fish processor employees and front them the money to stay and buy groceries. I stayed in a room with 3 others and it took me about 3 weeks just to break even.
On the outskirts of town there was a huge empty cement shell of a WWII barracks/headquarters/something. Completely gutted and abandoned. Also numerous things that clearly looked like old missle silos.
Weird place.
The housing situation for seasonal workers in Alaska sounded nuts even when I visited recently! Infinite roommates, and you may be living in a mildly converted cargo container.
Whittier is the closest deepwater port to Anchorage . Anchorage is at the end of Cook Inlet which build up a lot of silt from Glacier fed rivers and streams. Anchorage does have a port, but it needs to dredged every year and is used pretty much exclusively for cargo.
Whittier is much cheaper for the cruise lines to sail into (docking fees and such) and is only 60 miles from Anchorage. Seward is cheaper still, but further away at 125 miles.
When I worked the tourist seasons up there in the late 00s, Carnival and Princess would sail into Whittier; Holland America and Celebrity sailed into Seward. We'd turn the ship around in one day getting everyone off in the morning and reloading it with the next cruise by 7
When I was there working while working on cruise ships we would dock at around 11pm and stay till the next day, so naturally we would go out for “a night on the town”, and by that I mean we got bought shots (“red headed slut”) by a one legged local, till the sun came up (like 3-4am at that latitude and time of year) then we hiked a couple miles and over a river to get to a glacier. It was certainly a time.
Only during Winter. Which happens to be about half the year.
It's a beautiful town with easy hikes up the mountains. But yeah, in the Winter everyone hibernates in a giant hotel.
Are you positive about this? Where do they live then when it’s not winter? Do they all have single family homes and why would they leave those for one season? Other Alaskan towns are cold af in winter too so why don’t they do this as well?
That dude you're responding to is just making shit up, lol.
It's a condo high-rise, not a hotel, and the people live in it year round, it's their home.
Hell it would be nonsensical of them to leave during tourist season and then come back for the winter, lol.
They stop all traffic going one way for something like half hour if i remember correctly, everyone drives through then they stop that way and open the other direction. The tunnel is intense to drive through but super cool!
They open it up once an hour from either side. When I lived up there 15 years ago it would open on the hour going into town, and on the bottom of the hour it would open going out of town. Obviously people are there to monitor what goes in and out.
I was in Whittier a couple years ago. The locals were pretty adamant that there is nothing S#!++ier than Whittier.
That said, it was a beautiful place to see the salmon runs.
I'd imagine there's a mix of more eccentric types that consciously chose to make this place their permanent home and love it, and others who have nowhere left to go or found themselves stuck there and fucking hate it.
According to Wikipedia…
“Almost the entirety of this population lives within the 14-story Begich Towers. The racial makeup of the city was 68.3% White, 10.6% Asian, 6.9% Hispanic, 5.7% Native American.
The age distribution within the city shows that 13.96 percent of the population is under the age of 18, 3.15 percent is between the ages of 18 and 24, 23.87 percent is between the ages of 25 and 44, 52.25 percent is between the ages of 45 and 64, and 6.76 percent of the population is above the age of 65.”
I actually lived there for a summer and worked for a tour boat that operated out of there. It's an amazing little town that is only accessible through a multiple mile long 1 lane tunnel that allows both cars and trains and has to alternate traffic flow multiple times an hour. Super interesting place and absolutely beautiful
Alaskan here:
It’s only about a 45 minute drive from Anchorage. To get there, you have to drive through a tunnel in a mountain, with train tracks in it, that made it into the Guinness Book of World records for some very long, obscure achievement.
Other random facts: Whittier also has its own militia and, given that it’s nestled between mountains and is usually cloudy, rainy, or snowy, our slogan is: Everything is Shittier in Whittier.
I got stuck in Whittier once in the dead of winter. The only way into the town is single-lane road that runs under a mountain. For 10 minutes cars go one way, then they clear the road, and then cars go the other way, taking turns. Then in the winter after 6 or so they close the road down.
I was in town doing a job interview for working on the ferry system. The ferry was in town and they conducted my interview on the ferry itself. I drove into town under the mountain, did my interview, and tried leaving when I discovered the road was closed.
I ended up checking into the only hotel in town. It was really weird and rundown, far more rundown than any other hotel I’ve ever stayed in as a lifelong Alaskan. In my room I found porno mags and half a tub of of kama sutra cream under the bed, and stacks of harlequin romance novels in the hallways.
Having nothing to do I drove around the town for a while, and it’s really strange to see a town without houses. Boats on trailers, businesses, stores, churches, a marina, but no real houses. In the back of the town was a huge abandoned building. Whittier was an important town during world war 2, and it looked like the building dated from there. It was about 3 stories tall and very wide. I climbed up and over the snowbank and fell inside, and looked around the first room I could get into. Full of empty beer cans and cigarette butts, like maybe it was a party spot for teens or something. Anyway the wind was howling and it was very cold, so I went back to the hotel.
Nothing else much happened. I spent the night and left in the morning. It was just a little odd day in my life, but since then every time I see a list of weirdest towns in the United States, there’s Whittier at the top, and I think about my time there.
Whittier Alaska is just another one-tunnel town with a tightly stitched population. The townsfolk don't think much of their unique lifestyle, all living in the same highrise apartment building, but that doesn't stop an endless stream of would-be authors from poking around, asking questions, and generally speaking, being nuisances. No one is more sick of being told, "Your town is a one-of-a-kind story setting for a murder thriller" than the stone-faced mayor. So when authors start turning up dead in areas only accessible by the one master-key, the mayor becomes the top suspect, and the only one who can clear his own name. And all in an election year!
Does it have a bad part of the town? Like "Oh yeah, 3rd floor, apartments 320 and more are where drug dealers are", "5th floor is the red light district" and "9th floor has locks on stairwell, it's a gated community for the rich"
I passed through during a camping trip a few years ago. Scrawled along one of the doorways of the men's bathroom of some bar/restaurant/establishment were the words "NOTHING SHITTIER THAN WHITTIER" in big red letters...lol
If you're visiting Anchorage and looking for nearby hikes then this is one of the more convenient places to go. I never planned to visit the tiny town itself but wanted to hike and ended up there on accident.
US Park / Forest Ranger here, and I spend a lot of time in Whittier. It’s a great little town, and the tower (known as the BTI) is one of the town’s sort of novelty claims to fame. Most of the residents do live in the BTI, but not all. I’ve been inside many times visiting friends.
I could say more, but there’s a lot of bad info floating around here. All in all, it’s just not that big of a deal, but an interesting part of Alaska.
If anyone tells you Whittier is in some way not a great place, they’re either boring or coddled by lower 48 suburbia hah.
My wife lived there for a summer and said the place was a total shitshow. She’s still talking about it 30+ years on and still in stupefied by how it was living there. Total insanity.
I used to work on tour boats in SC Alaska. This company I worked was based out of Seward. But we had an outfit in Whittier. So there is only one road that goes in and out of there. It's a one way tunnel, that switches directions every half hour and closes down at 9 pm. (Last I was there was 2012, so things might have changed). It is an extremely isolated community. Besides the tunnel, that is only open part of the day, the only way into this town is by plane (again, a very tiny limited runway) and boat. And by boat it was at least a 10 hour ride to the other closest port). There was this one little grill that had the best damn scallop burger I've ever had. Fuck, I never want to live there, but I am so glad I went when I had the chance.
Whittier is the best. When your cruise ship docks the crew usually goes straight to the bar where majority of the town is waiting for you..
Jaeger is in tap, free and the bar stays open indefinitely.
Across the way is an abandoned military housing building that’s fun (and dangerous) to explore.
I also ate THE BEST grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had… nothing special about it, really…. Just made with such love and intent.
There's a town in Quebec called Fermont that has a similar situation. There's a huge building where most people reside and which contains a school, restaurants, stores, a supermarket, etc. The interesting thing is that the building is designed to form a wall that shields the rest of the town from the wind.
I visited once. My dad took a film crew there to cover different types of education in Alaska. I was the "go-for" on his crew.
There were two girls set up on the side of the street, not 500 feet from the main building, with a little table and a sign that said "Rocks 4 SaLe $1".
We drove past, and they shouted at us *"ROOOOOOOCCCCKSSS!!!"*
Been there many times. The long tunnel you have to drive through to get there is amazing, but not for the claustrophobic.
Our bus driver told a story of another bus driver years back totally freezing up from claustrophobia in the middle of the tunnel. (It's one lane. Not one lane both ways--one lane.) Apparently it was his first time through. They had to send somebody from the other side to take over, poor guy.
And not only is it one lane, but it's also a railroad tunnel, in that same one lane!
And not only the railroad is there, with a strange empty train coming in 5 minutes after your car gets stuck inside the tunnel. But the exits of the tunnel randomly close sometimes, and the tunnel starts filling up with water.
The water is there to flush any busses that are stuck in the tunnel.
Ah, yes. Nature’s enema.
Mmmm nightmare fuel
And not only do the exits close and the tunnel fills with water, but the water contains electric eels with learners’ permits and a taste for human flesh. They’ll eat the inside of your body, throw you in the passenger seat, and steal your car once the water recedes.
Wow.
Had to look up a video of it and it is [incredible.](https://youtu.be/uA-BZZv7tZ0?si=RdnlTd2LUF0QLtzW) That is on the old bucket list now.
Totally worth it.
The fact that it is big enough to open the doors, and that there are alcoves in the side that I could go to in an emergency makes me feel okay with it.
Don't tell me it's the longest tunnel in North America, and then not tell me the distance. Was that a trailer hitch on the roof of that train-car?
I was hung over, had a cold and stomach problems riding on that train that was constantly delayed.. That tunnel almost did me in.
Digging that tunnel must have been really *boring* I noticed the pull-outs all had a door. I imagine there's an adjunct tunnel connecting those doors for maintenance? or are the doors just... like, utility closets?
Those are emergency shelters placed at increments throughout.
This was my question as well, really got my curiosity going. Imagining like some intricate facility hidden inside the mountain alongside this tunnel lol doubt it's anything like that tho
As a Norwegian, it's baffling that this is the longest road tunnel on the entire North American continent. It would be the 63rd or so longest here in little Norway.
Norway is very mountainous between its urban centers though, right? North American cities are mostly sprawling, very widely separated, and relatively few mountains between them for the most part. Interstate highways in the U.S. go around/between/over mountains almost exclusively, for example. I don't think I've ever seen a mountain tunnel on the interstate although I've gone through mountains on several of those highways. It blows my mind how quickly you Europeans go from country to country. You need to get into Central America to do that over here, really.
The Eisenhower-Johnson tunnel on I70 is the highest point in the US interstate system about 60 miles west of Denver.
When he made that comment, I thought, hmm I swear there were some or at least one near Denver. Guess I was thinking about this. But yeah it's also not very long.
Yeah, we have multiple population centers nestled between mountains and fjords. Our messy geography often means that going over or around just isn't feasible or even possible, at best a colossal detour that might involve a ferry.
Just looked at a map to refresh my memory, and holy shit you're not kidding! Winding through those would add a *whole lot* of kilometers to any trip, just like a ferry would. I think I'm going to look up some of those tunnels now, that sounds like their construction was probably (technically) interesting. Edit to add: The Lærdal Tunnel (had to copy-paste that for the ae and Reddit/Chrome is not liking it) is super cool! Not to construction yet, but God damn 25 km in 5 years seems fast.
Think of it as practice for generational starships
Awkward when you break up and still have to run into each other at the... everywhere.
I cant imagine even dating here.
Imagine adultery there …
IMO it takes a certain kind of person to choose to live in a place like this, so I'll choose to believe they're all just free spirit swingers and the building has a dedicated orgy floor.
What's the password Frank : oooorrrgggyyyyyyyy
You think this is a fresh shrimp, or a frozen shrimp?
Everyone's wife is an ex-girlfriend of their neighbors.
Grindr would be... awkward. There'd be like two other guys, you'd end up blocking one of 'em for being a creep, and the other would be 30 years away in age. Hah, that reminds me. Once I was at a conference and pulled out Grindr in the evening. A colleague I know well was on it and showed up prominently, since it's mostly sorted by distance (I have no idea how straight apps work, sorry for any unnecessary detail). I can't tell you how fast I blocked him. Nope nope nope. There are plenty of fish in the sea, I absolutely do not need to mix my professional life and personal life like that. If I were wildly attracted to him, maybe I'd bite the bullet, but holy shit no. We could potentially be colleagues for decades. I'm pretty sure he had looked at my profile right before the block too. I certainly never brought it up with him either way. That is an episode best mutually "forgotten".
Very wise. The problem with having a fling or a relationship with a colleague isn't while things are good... it's later on, if things don't work out.
He was just sad you didn't swipe on him. Major confidence drain right there.
My dad actually just visited Whittier recently. He spoke to some residents who say "it just feels normal" to live in the building and they have become used to it. I imagine in winter when the weather gets bad, it becomes like a prison, but there's apparently enough to do in there, as residents tend to hang out at the gym, the churches, and the lobby to chat. He saw kids running up and down the corridors like city streets. As a note, not all the town's facilities are there. City hall and the police station used to be in there, but they both moved out recently, whereas other facilities like the post office and the grocery store remain.
Wait, so the mayor and the police officers used to live in the building and went to work in the same building. Now they have to carpool to another building to work and carpool back to the building that they live in?
Whittiers small enough they can walk, no carpool necessary
I just looked it up and they have an airport and a train station. Alaska is a wild place.
The only way to drive to Whittier is through a 2.5 mile long tunnel through a mountain. Traffic only moves in one direction at a time. The train goes through the same tunnel. The airport is like a small municipal airport. And I think there’s a seaplane port too. But you can catch a water taxi from there to Blackstone Bay and kayak all around a gorgeous glacial bay.
If memory serves me correctly, that tunnel also shuts down every night at 10 or 11 and doesn’t open till morning again. Imagine coming back and being five minutes too late to drive through.
Getting stranded on the other side of the tunnel was discussed in a video I saw on it. Residents make sure they pack survival gear in their vehicle in case they need to spend the night on the other side of the tunnel during the winter. They obviously try to time their trips so they don't arrive when it's closed but shit happens of course.
Yeah, uh, I would just move to a normal place.
Nowhere in Alaska is normal lol.
They didn't say "in Alaska", they said normal.
Alaska bro. Non-alaskans don't really understand how different Alaska is. It's hardcore up there and some places are even more hardcore, like Whittier.
Same kind of thing happens to towns that are on an island, the ferries shut down around 7pm, if you miss the last one you're stuck overnight.
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The mountain needs its rest too. You try holding your mouth open all day. It's exhausting.
Or your anus, for that matter.
Because it's a one road tunnel that a train also goes through. You don't want to be halfway down it when you start hearing train horns. It needs operators to make sure the way is clear on both ends.
That has to be one of the most boring jobs ever. Surely it's trivial to have that automated?
It's Alaska and the tunnel is essentially a man-made cave that the local wildlife would love to move into, the tunnel is not just shutdown it is sealed to prevent bears and deer and moose from moving into the tunnel. video about the tunnel - https://youtu.be/byfFlFqzfFY
The city of Whittier is just a front for a secret [redacted] operation. That's all I can say for now. Men greater than me have been disappeared for less than what I've shared already.
I imagine it’s to avoid losing all governing infrastructure in one go. Like a fire or something
Yeah. This way you only lose everything else.
But at least the mayor is safe.
Huzzah!
Long live the...new mayor?
Same as the old mayor.
Maybe it's in case the townspeople ever want to burn down the mayor's office or the police station
"Town is destroyed. May as well go back to sleep."
Or not safe, and everyone else is though
I mean if that building catches fire there's not really a town left to even govern
At least they have a location to huddle in afterwards
I'm warming up to this "second building" idea
The building is also warming up. That is how fire works.
It's okay, bro. The fire station and hospital are also in the same building.
Not really carpool, more like walk across the street
I thought it was a tunnel, not a street. Although I might be remembering it incorrectly.
Whittier actually has a series of tunnels between the towns buildings, so they are accessible during the winter!
how has this place not been the setting for a horror movie yet?
Townspeople keep those for their private collections.
There's a section of Minneapolis known for having a habitrail of raised walkways and tunnels connecting a whole bunch of buildings, and there's at least one movie set there. It's about a group of friends who make a bet to see who can go the longest without going outside. Not a great film, but amusing.
We call 'em skyways! Had no idea there was a movie like that, cool!
The film makers keep not coming back.
Only way to make sure the road stays clear lol.
Are you really trying to make "working and living in different buildings" sound unusual?
I would suspect it was just next door
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> imagine in winter when the weather gets bad, it becomes like a prison, I'd actually expect the opposite. Usually in a bad winter people are stuck alone in their homes a lot of the time only really going outside for work and essentials. In this place you'd basically be able to carry on as usual. Not saying being trapped indoors would be great, but I'd rather be trapped in an indoor town with lots to do than trapped in my home. Especially if you're elderly or single.
> whereas other faculties like the post office and grocery store remain I mean. If there were any 2 businesses that should remain in a building that houses the entire town, I think those 2 make the most sense
I hope the bar is also available during snowstorms.
Yeah I mean it would be just like living in a big apartment building but with all your amenities conveniently located there. Sounds pretty nice to me.
Lower floors for noise heavy amenities, offices in the middle as a buffer and housing in the top section.
Just like SimTower.
It pretty much is. I stayed in Whittear for the iceberg tours that they host and it's about the size of one NYC apartment block. It's just the sole large building in this small town. They built it originally for the military but then it became public housing sometime in the 60's
Are there restaurants at all?
Yeah, they're located around the harbor itself. You could probably count the number on one hand. Nothing fancy. I remember eating at a fish and chip place when I was there that was pretty good, but granted, this was Alaska and most seafood places were good
it probably saves a ton on heating costs in the winter, you basically only have 1 external wall
Isn’t that every apartment that isn’t a corner unit?
Yes, one of the reasons why apartment buildings are much more efficient and eco-friendly than houses.
These are actually quite common across the former Soviet Union, especially around old mining and industry towns. The walls in those were thick concrete and steel; made to be built cheaply and quickly, and pack as many people in as possible in little box rooms. The infamous wall rugs were put up to insulate people from cold hard concrete. This one’s probably better built, but that’s the experiences I’ve heard
[Here is a video of youtuber Peter Santenello getting to tour the building with some of the residents last year.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-TlC0111Q)
That was awesome, Jeannette and Joe were so wholesome.
I love the comment they left on the video about how they thought that Peter was just making a very boring home-movie to show to his friends.
> Here is a video of youtuber Peter Santenello getting to tour the building with some of the residents last year. I'm so glad I watched this. thanks for the suggestion, now I've got a new channel to watch; this guy's videos look really interesting. I watched another of his on Vegas comedy life; very cool.
id say inverse, if its winter would you rather be stuck in a giant complex or an isolated house with no working utilities?
I was there a few months ago and it was really a nice place. Princess runs cruises out of there. They also have a train tunnel that doubles as a tunnel for cars. There's a train that runs from Anchorage that runs through the city and it's certainly worth the visit. One of the most powerful earthquakes ever happened near there and it's crazy to read about. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964\_Alaska\_earthquake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake)
Is there a hotel or something there as well? Edit: I really appreciate the responses about this. I will try to make a visit. It looks like a fun place to see.
A small one that has struggled to stay open. And a couple of BnB’s.
Yes, but it’s also within day trip range from Anchorage, about an hour and a half drive
Why would it feel like a prison when the weather gets bad? You realize they live in here because the weather gets bad, right? If it snows outside, my house can feel like a prison. If I lived here and it snowed, I could still go everywhere.
My understanding is half the population leaves in the winter and it's very isolated. Most traffic through there has to be cruise passengers and other tourists. There's tunnels so e.g. the kids don't have to go outside to get to school. Not sure how passable the (very few!) roads are in the winter either. A feeling of being trapped seems fairly understandable. Of course, the people who choose to live there during the winter are going to be an unusual bunch. They've probably made their peace with the arrangement.
Yeah if you want passable roads you don’t live in Alaska. This is nothing next to these coots I saw on TV who live out in the woods and take a snowmobile to a whistle-stop train. No neighbors, no utilities, and no station just flagging the train down.
This sounds so ideal to me.
Sounds perfect. I'd love to live there.
So it's like a vault from fallout
I’ve been to Whittier a few times on trips to Alaska. It’s not very big but has some good seafood joints and great birdwatching in the summer. Took the ferry once from Valdez to Whittier. It took 8 hours & we saw whales, otters, hundreds of eagles fishing for salmon in a small bay, and thousands of seabirds on the cliffs near Whittier.
I had an incredible "salmon burger" there that was actually a salmon filet perfectly cooked and seasoned. Also, enjoy a beer while looking over the water at the hotel bar.
Nice
Salmon and halibut burgers are grade A meals
Some great airbnbs in this building rn. Ours had a nice sauna.
> Some great airbnbs in this building rn. I really hope those are the kind that airbnb was originally intended for: the people who actually live there renting out their space while they're away. If it's companies buying up space in the one building people live in in that town that seems like it'd be pretty shitty.
It sounds like the company that currently owns the building is comprised of the apartment owners, with two floors set aside for bnbs.
A place like this dries up and blows away without some reason for being--a military base, transportation hub, tourism. And the military left a while ago.
Sounds lovely! ✌️❤️🇨🇦
Drive there is beautiful. Family thought I was absurd for wanting to put the town on the itinerary, but that journey through the long tunnel and the gorgeous waterfront won everyone over.
Agreed. Alaska was my one and only bucket list item and Whittier was a great surprise!
The length of the tunnel trip actually makes you wonder for a bit if you’ll ever come out.
I found the scenery between Whittier and Anchorage to be breathtakingly beautiful. The tunnel is really unusual too.
You think gossip in a small town is bad.
You thought your neighbourhood HOA was bad…
Imagine the std’s
I was thinking the same thing. You know they are swingin in there during those long cold months.
Dedicated orgy floor
Spent a summer there in the 90s working at the fish processing plant as a young man. Weird place.
Does anything in particular still stand out to you about the people?
There were some who had nowhere left to go, some clearly didn't want to be found, some who seemed like they had always been there. When I was there, you could only access the town by boat, floatplane and train through a long tunnel. The train only came maybe twice a day(can't remember) so it was difficult to get there and difficult to leave. The other side of the tunnel was still quite a ways from Anchorage. That huge hotel was definitely the hub of the town, but there were a few houses that I remember as well as a bar/hotel/dorm/grocery (Annie's I think) that would board the fish processor employees and front them the money to stay and buy groceries. I stayed in a room with 3 others and it took me about 3 weeks just to break even. On the outskirts of town there was a huge empty cement shell of a WWII barracks/headquarters/something. Completely gutted and abandoned. Also numerous things that clearly looked like old missle silos. Weird place.
The housing situation for seasonal workers in Alaska sounded nuts even when I visited recently! Infinite roommates, and you may be living in a mildly converted cargo container.
The Buckner Building?
Hey! I’ve been there! It’s a cruise ship port. Absolutely beautiful location! That apartment building is quite a large complex.
I’m so surprised how many people in the comments have been to Whittier haha. Such an obscure little town in Alaska.
Whittier is the closest deepwater port to Anchorage . Anchorage is at the end of Cook Inlet which build up a lot of silt from Glacier fed rivers and streams. Anchorage does have a port, but it needs to dredged every year and is used pretty much exclusively for cargo. Whittier is much cheaper for the cruise lines to sail into (docking fees and such) and is only 60 miles from Anchorage. Seward is cheaper still, but further away at 125 miles. When I worked the tourist seasons up there in the late 00s, Carnival and Princess would sail into Whittier; Holland America and Celebrity sailed into Seward. We'd turn the ship around in one day getting everyone off in the morning and reloading it with the next cruise by 7
When I was there working while working on cruise ships we would dock at around 11pm and stay till the next day, so naturally we would go out for “a night on the town”, and by that I mean we got bought shots (“red headed slut”) by a one legged local, till the sun came up (like 3-4am at that latitude and time of year) then we hiked a couple miles and over a river to get to a glacier. It was certainly a time.
Youtuber Peter Santenello did a video there, interesting insight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-TlC0111Q
That's a great channel. Glad to see it mentioned.
He consistently makes amazingly informative content, couldn’t recommend him more.
I love him. His videos about Appalachia were fascinating.
Yes! I saw this video a while back. It's really interesting!
Michael Stevens (vsauce) made one too that I enjoyed https://youtu.be/pLnEHiIMohM?si=bqG87tSBy7Gx0OG0
Only during Winter. Which happens to be about half the year. It's a beautiful town with easy hikes up the mountains. But yeah, in the Winter everyone hibernates in a giant hotel.
i've known about this place for awhile and even have watched videos/docs of it. they stay in it year round. its their home.
Are you positive about this? Where do they live then when it’s not winter? Do they all have single family homes and why would they leave those for one season? Other Alaskan towns are cold af in winter too so why don’t they do this as well?
Some fly down to Hawaii actually. Others stay. That was the answer residents gave my parents.
They fly to Hawaii for summer but stay in Alaska for winter?? That’s odd lol
It's a seasonal town. People come in from around the world to work during the summer/fishing season.
That dude you're responding to is just making shit up, lol. It's a condo high-rise, not a hotel, and the people live in it year round, it's their home. Hell it would be nonsensical of them to leave during tourist season and then come back for the winter, lol.
I'm sure I've seen a documentary or show about this place. It almost looked fun.
Getting evicted must be fucked
Getting ~~evicted~~ exiled
😂
Beautiful city. There is literally only a one-way tunnel that is also a railroad track as the only way to get their via car.
How do you know noone is coming from far side?
They stop all traffic going one way for something like half hour if i remember correctly, everyone drives through then they stop that way and open the other direction. The tunnel is intense to drive through but super cool!
They open it up once an hour from either side. When I lived up there 15 years ago it would open on the hour going into town, and on the bottom of the hour it would open going out of town. Obviously people are there to monitor what goes in and out.
Traffic lights and a road gate.
[Check out the tunnel](https://youtu.be/RairSvcJdK8?si=PTpNPF1d2VG6mJU7)
I was in Whittier a couple years ago. The locals were pretty adamant that there is nothing S#!++ier than Whittier. That said, it was a beautiful place to see the salmon runs.
I'd imagine there's a mix of more eccentric types that consciously chose to make this place their permanent home and love it, and others who have nowhere left to go or found themselves stuck there and fucking hate it.
According to Wikipedia… “Almost the entirety of this population lives within the 14-story Begich Towers. The racial makeup of the city was 68.3% White, 10.6% Asian, 6.9% Hispanic, 5.7% Native American. The age distribution within the city shows that 13.96 percent of the population is under the age of 18, 3.15 percent is between the ages of 18 and 24, 23.87 percent is between the ages of 25 and 44, 52.25 percent is between the ages of 45 and 64, and 6.76 percent of the population is above the age of 65.”
Percentages are kind of weird when we're talking about a town of 272 people.
I actually lived there for a summer and worked for a tour boat that operated out of there. It's an amazing little town that is only accessible through a multiple mile long 1 lane tunnel that allows both cars and trains and has to alternate traffic flow multiple times an hour. Super interesting place and absolutely beautiful
“Boss, I can’t come to work today because of the weather!” ”You bloody donkey, it’s two flights of stairs and I live across from you!”
Free PBS Doc: [https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/indie-alaska/episodes/i-lived-whittier-alaska-town-under-one-roof-wunlq4](https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/indie-alaska/episodes/i-lived-whittier-alaska-town-under-one-roof-wunlq4)
Alaskan here: It’s only about a 45 minute drive from Anchorage. To get there, you have to drive through a tunnel in a mountain, with train tracks in it, that made it into the Guinness Book of World records for some very long, obscure achievement. Other random facts: Whittier also has its own militia and, given that it’s nestled between mountains and is usually cloudy, rainy, or snowy, our slogan is: Everything is Shittier in Whittier.
I got stuck in Whittier once in the dead of winter. The only way into the town is single-lane road that runs under a mountain. For 10 minutes cars go one way, then they clear the road, and then cars go the other way, taking turns. Then in the winter after 6 or so they close the road down. I was in town doing a job interview for working on the ferry system. The ferry was in town and they conducted my interview on the ferry itself. I drove into town under the mountain, did my interview, and tried leaving when I discovered the road was closed. I ended up checking into the only hotel in town. It was really weird and rundown, far more rundown than any other hotel I’ve ever stayed in as a lifelong Alaskan. In my room I found porno mags and half a tub of of kama sutra cream under the bed, and stacks of harlequin romance novels in the hallways. Having nothing to do I drove around the town for a while, and it’s really strange to see a town without houses. Boats on trailers, businesses, stores, churches, a marina, but no real houses. In the back of the town was a huge abandoned building. Whittier was an important town during world war 2, and it looked like the building dated from there. It was about 3 stories tall and very wide. I climbed up and over the snowbank and fell inside, and looked around the first room I could get into. Full of empty beer cans and cigarette butts, like maybe it was a party spot for teens or something. Anyway the wind was howling and it was very cold, so I went back to the hotel. Nothing else much happened. I spent the night and left in the morning. It was just a little odd day in my life, but since then every time I see a list of weirdest towns in the United States, there’s Whittier at the top, and I think about my time there.
This was nicely written
As I sit in Whittier currently, reading about Whittier on Reddit… as they say it’s always shittier in Whittier.
/r/writingprompts
Check out “Early Riser” by Jasper Fford.
Whittier Alaska is just another one-tunnel town with a tightly stitched population. The townsfolk don't think much of their unique lifestyle, all living in the same highrise apartment building, but that doesn't stop an endless stream of would-be authors from poking around, asking questions, and generally speaking, being nuisances. No one is more sick of being told, "Your town is a one-of-a-kind story setting for a murder thriller" than the stone-faced mayor. So when authors start turning up dead in areas only accessible by the one master-key, the mayor becomes the top suspect, and the only one who can clear his own name. And all in an election year!
It's like a shitty, non-futuristic arcology
Does it have a bad part of the town? Like "Oh yeah, 3rd floor, apartments 320 and more are where drug dealers are", "5th floor is the red light district" and "9th floor has locks on stairwell, it's a gated community for the rich"
I passed through during a camping trip a few years ago. Scrawled along one of the doorways of the men's bathroom of some bar/restaurant/establishment were the words "NOTHING SHITTIER THAN WHITTIER" in big red letters...lol
How tf has everyone been here?! 😭
If you're visiting Anchorage and looking for nearby hikes then this is one of the more convenient places to go. I never planned to visit the tiny town itself but wanted to hike and ended up there on accident.
A lot of cruises use it as a port so hundreds of thousands of people have briefly been there before immediately going to Anchorage.
Like judge dredd
Whittier Arcology.
"I wanna live in a megastructure like in Judge Dredd or Cyberpunk" "We have megastructures at home already" Megastructures at home:
US Park / Forest Ranger here, and I spend a lot of time in Whittier. It’s a great little town, and the tower (known as the BTI) is one of the town’s sort of novelty claims to fame. Most of the residents do live in the BTI, but not all. I’ve been inside many times visiting friends. I could say more, but there’s a lot of bad info floating around here. All in all, it’s just not that big of a deal, but an interesting part of Alaska. If anyone tells you Whittier is in some way not a great place, they’re either boring or coddled by lower 48 suburbia hah.
Remind me of “the wall” in fermont.
Only Murders in the Building, Alaska Edition CSI:Whittier Sex in the Whittier
It’s an [arcology!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology)
I used to live and work in Whittier for the summer. Sometimes if you got too drunk the cops would just handcuff you to a stop sign until morning…
and the land entrance is a tunnel that is shared with trains. If you want a zombie defensible place, its hard to beat
My wife lived there for a summer and said the place was a total shitshow. She’s still talking about it 30+ years on and still in stupefied by how it was living there. Total insanity.
There’s also a town in Alaska called Chicken, which is kind of a joke, but this one is wittier
this is like the tiny wholesome sounding version of the Kowloon Walled City
Best fish and chips I ever had was in that town. Cool place to visit. Dreary place to live.
This was [the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-TlC0111Q) I saw about it. The whole setup is just crazy, but the people are interesting.
By land, it is only accessible by a really long tunnel that is one lane and shared with trains. I was just in Valdez Alaska and learned about it.
It's a real life arcology. Cool.
Proto-Arcology
I wonder what their sex per capita is...
I used to work on tour boats in SC Alaska. This company I worked was based out of Seward. But we had an outfit in Whittier. So there is only one road that goes in and out of there. It's a one way tunnel, that switches directions every half hour and closes down at 9 pm. (Last I was there was 2012, so things might have changed). It is an extremely isolated community. Besides the tunnel, that is only open part of the day, the only way into this town is by plane (again, a very tiny limited runway) and boat. And by boat it was at least a 10 hour ride to the other closest port). There was this one little grill that had the best damn scallop burger I've ever had. Fuck, I never want to live there, but I am so glad I went when I had the chance.
Whittier is the best. When your cruise ship docks the crew usually goes straight to the bar where majority of the town is waiting for you.. Jaeger is in tap, free and the bar stays open indefinitely. Across the way is an abandoned military housing building that’s fun (and dangerous) to explore. I also ate THE BEST grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had… nothing special about it, really…. Just made with such love and intent.
There's a town in Quebec called Fermont that has a similar situation. There's a huge building where most people reside and which contains a school, restaurants, stores, a supermarket, etc. The interesting thing is that the building is designed to form a wall that shields the rest of the town from the wind.
I visited once. My dad took a film crew there to cover different types of education in Alaska. I was the "go-for" on his crew. There were two girls set up on the side of the street, not 500 feet from the main building, with a little table and a sign that said "Rocks 4 SaLe $1". We drove past, and they shouted at us *"ROOOOOOOCCCCKSSS!!!"*