The Fake Townhouses Hiding Mystery Underground Portals | Hacker News Reader

The Fake Townhouses Hiding Mystery Underground Portals

messynessychic.com

64 pointsvinnyglennon19 comments

A better headline would be "Fake houses hiding tunnels and shafts whose existence is reasonably well documented, well known to those working in specific fields, and neither rare nor mysterious in anyway" but that would generate fewer clicks....

An even better headline would be "Serverless Architecture," but that's already in use today.

People not living in Western world may not know such things

Even better are the manholes you can see near major satellite earth stations labeled "TELEPORT"

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hVfE2qcyzXU/TJvJ6mq58zI/AAAAAAAAAhA/uW...

Teleport, of course, is a common industry term for any facility that serves two way Tx/Rx satellite services... But ordinary people find it amusing to stand on them and take a photo.

Here's one in a suburb in Vancouver close to where I used to live. It's for a railway tunnel that runs to a bridge leading to the north shore.

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2792941,-123.0184348,3a,75y,...

I agree with the above commenter though. These aren't that unique and I'm sure they exist in most cities.

What object do you want to call attention to in the Street view image you linked

http://www.vanrail.ca/railfanning Look under "Railroad Oddities" -- in street view here, there's a house with no windows...

It's the house behind the fence. I guess if the whole point is to blend in with the neighborhood, it did its job.

I've seen some nice telco central offices in small towns that blend right into the residential subdivision neighborhood.

Usually they screw up the illusion by installing enough "property of xyz telco" signs and maybe a bucket truck or two in the driveway, but the CO itself is just residential house.

Must be some weird story behind that.

I remember seeing one in St. Louis - it was just an ordinary drab, beige-brick corner office building, and you wouldn't pick it out besides the 'AT&T' signs and the blinking rows of servers barely visible behind barred first-story windows.

Interestingly, it was right across the street from a gas station that often had a 'Nuisance Abatement Vehicle' (Bearcat) parked outside which was covered in cameras and painted with a gaudy, "We are watching you!" slogan complemented by an icon of an eye inside of a magnifying glass. But I think that was just the PD trying to justify its budget expenditures.

Downtown Chicago has a number of electrical substations that are disguised as buildings. If you are just driving past you would probably have no idea. See photos here: http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/12/13/lights-on-but-nobod...

I think my favorite part is the fake door installed by an artist. Are there other examples of this sort of thing?

It reminds me a bit of power outlet stickers.

i wish they would do this in LA. our transformers, water pumps/storage, and subway access are out in the open and ugly as hell.

LA actually has a ton of oil wells hidden behind building facades, dotted all around the city.

This is really fascinating. Reminds me of cell towers disguised as trees in uptown NY. Would definitely love to see more of modern infrastructure blending in their environment!

Charming variation of how civilization is a thin veneer.

http://www.bunker42.com/eng/

There's also this one, the entrance tries to look like an ordinary house.

One such row of "houses" was featured in an episode of "Sherlock".

In fact, they used the exact one that is mentioned in the article: 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens (although incorrectly called Terrace in the article)

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