- [Narrator] Many of the
world's cities and suburbs have hidden secrets you might
never come across by accident. Architecture isn't
everyone's specialist subject but even the most expert eyes wouldn't notice some of
these impressive fake houses. So, get comfortable and stay tuned as we sneak a peek behind the curtain. Subway portal. Take a look at Joralemon
street in Brooklyn and tell me what you see. An attractive row of brownstone townhouses with varying appreciations
for Gothic stylings, right? Wrong, those blacked out
windows are concealing something much stranger
than a vampirical tenant. In fact, no one has lived
at 58 Joralemon Street in over 100 years and likely never will because it's not a home at all. This unsuspecting house
nestled on a cobblestone street by the river is just an elaborate facade for a ventilation point
and secret subway exit. The house was once a
private residence in 1847 but when the first
underwater subway tunnel, connecting Manhattan and
Brooklyn was constructed in 1908 it was acquired by the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority of New York City and
transformed completely. If you wander up to its locked doors and peak through the crack, you won't find a TV or plush
couches peering back at you but a dimly lit room with
cold concrete flooring. Another tale tale sign
that all isn't as it seems is a red pipe near the front door which reads Joralemon St. Tube 4/5 Line. The house was originally fitted with industrial steel shutters, designed to allow compressed vapors from the subway cars passing red below to escape like one big chimney. In 1999, it was eventually restored to appease disgruntled neighbors who'd nickname it the
billowing shaft house. And nowadays you could pass
by this secret bat cave without even realizing it. It also serves a second
purpose as an emergency New York City subway exit. Unsuspecting commuters could
find themselves ascending a grim set of spiraling metal
stairs, past utility boxes and into a windowless room with a door that leads your right onto the
stupid 58 Joralemon Street, as if a merging from the underworld below. Posh pop-ups. Located just moments
away from the expanses of High Park in London is a
duo of prestigious townhouses, which definitely deserve a second look. Number 23 and 24 Leinster
Gardens are London's own answer to Brooklyn's shaft house and are one of the most well-known
fake houses in the world, even featuring extensively in an episode of the UK TV
drama, Sherlock, in 2014. Still, it would be virtually impossible to spot these dummy houses just by passing them on the street. If you look closely enough though, you'll notice a few glaring differences. The painted on windows offer
no view into the house beyond and the doors have no
handles or letterboxes. When the Metropolitan Underground Railway, the first of its kind,
opened in the 1860s, deep tunnels were built
to house the tracks and then recovered using the amply named cut and cover method. The line between Paddington and Bayswater, which opened in 1868 pass directly through the affluent properties. So, they were demolished
to accommodate the tracks. The ensuing gap became a handy place for the steam powered subway cars to disperse smoke and steam, which were compressed while underground. Other residents of Leinster Gardens were understandably cheesed off
that their posh neighborhood now had a visible scar down the center. So, a bizarre agreement was reached. To maintain the character of the street, number 23 and 24 were re-erected
as dressed up dummy houses, which are really just five feet wide. And if you wander around the
bag, you'll find a gaping void, which offers a view to the tracks below where trains still pass regularly. In the 1930s, a clever fraudster
even made a small fortune by selling tickets to a false charity gala at 23 Leinster Gardens. Of course, when the guests turned up, they realized the house
belonged to Mr. N.O. Body. Sham suburbia. Creating a fake house that can blend in to its real life surroundings is one thing but dreaming up an
entire false neighborhood is a completely different ball game. That's exactly what
happened during the throes of World War II in 1944, when the US government
decided to take every measure to conceal their state-of-the-art Boeing manufacturing plant too from possible Japanese
bombers flying overhead. Famous Hollywood set
designer, John Stewart Detlie, was hired to help hide the plant from its would be attackers and the result was dubbed
the Boeing Wonderland. The picture perfect fake neighborhood was made using classic film techniques. The ground was made of burlap and canvas, while the grass and trees were created using chicken feathers,
spun glass and chicken wire. Pretty convincing, right? The houses were built from wood and were only four feet tall, just large enough to look real from above. And the streets had some
pretty on the nose names, like Synthetic Street
and Burlap Boulevard. In total, the neighborhood
covered 26 acres of land and just below it's plush
lawn some 30,000 men and women were constructing around
300 B-17 bombers per month. To keep up appearances, the neighborhood was
even populated by actors and promotional footage of
residents lounging about in luxury was released to the public. Sadly, the Boeing
Wonderland was demolished after falling into decay in 2010. So, don't start packing
your moving boxes just yet. Hydro houses. Believe it or not, one of
the most abundant in places in the world for fake houses is Toronto, which is home to at least
90 stealthy structures. From the outside, they look
like any other building in the neighborhood. From quaint family homes like
the one at 640 Millwood Road to Georgian colonial houses
like 555 Spadina Road but not one has ever opened
its doors to potential buyers. The explanation is simple
but no less strange. These faux residencies are nothing more than well camouflaged
electrical substations, converting raw high voltage electricity into a voltage low enough to
distribute throughout the city. The story goes that when the
utility company Toronto Hydro was established in 1911, the same year massive new
generators at Niagara Falls first lit up the downtown streets, it became apparent that
a network of substations was needed to complete
the emerging power grid. There was one small problem, though, as Toronto citizens were not overly keen on having massive power stations plunked in the middle of
their familiar neighborhoods. As a result, hundreds of substations were designed by architects
to blend in seamlessly with their surroundings. Many of the original substations, like the one at Glen Grove Avenue, nicknamed The Castle, tended
towards historic grandeur until post World War II when a more saltbox style was favored. Nowadays, many of these
Toronto transformers are disused for various reasons, including one unfortunate instance where one went up in flames
but many still remain. In some cases, industrialization
has left them behind and stations like 353 Eglington Avenue now stick out like a sore thumb. Military chalets. Switzerland is renowned
for its stunning scenery. So, you probably wouldn't
think twice about coming across the romantic little chalet like this one on a chilly hike. You might even want to
drop in for a warm drink. There'd be no answer if you tried though because no one's home and no one has occupied this chalet or some 250 others of its kind since the Second World War. You'd never guess but these
quaint cottages are actually abandoned military bunkers,
which used to house a bevy of top of the range
weaponry during a time when aerial reconnaissance
and espionage was rife. Most of these pretty houses actually have seven foot thick walls and hidden features like grenade throwing holes. A special team of theater
designers and artists were hired to camouflage
the fortified bunkers so that they could easily
deceive a casual observer at a minimum distance of 20 meters. Each one is finished
with delicate paint work and wooden shutters but take a closer look and you'll find that
many are strangely narrow and the net curtains are
religious painted on. You'd be forgiven for failing
to notice these things though because these beguiling structures even remained a military
secret from Swiss residents until a photographer
named Christian Schwager released a project titled Fake Chalets in 2004. Schwager captured over
100 of these disused historical enigmas and
one named Villa Rose was later restored and
open to the public in 2006 as a military museum. French fakery. The next fake house on this
list may never have been found if it weren't for a work of fiction and a novel by Italian
philosopher, Umberto Eco, titled Foucault's Pendulum. Two characters talk about a
house in Paris with a secret. Eco writes, people walk by
and they don't know the truth, that the house is a fake. It's a facade, an enclosure
with no room, no interior. Intriguing stuff, right? Thankfully, some of
the more curious minded set about tracking down
this mysterious house and identified it as building 145, located on Rue Lafayette in
the 10th Paris arrondissement. On first glance, nothing seems amiss. It's windows match
those either side of it, the door's there and
there's even a balcony too but no building waits behind it. Much like Brooklyn's fake brownstone and the deceptive houses
at Leinster Gardens, this desirable Parisian home is nothing but a ventilation flute created to accommodate the French Metro. A satellite view of the
building reveals its big secret. The pretty phase is nothing but a front for the gaping hole to
the underground below. Also in the capital is what
appears to be a tiny abode stuck on the corner of a street. But what is it really? A secret entrance to the Metro for the most time savvy commuters? Unfortunately, this facade
is just a trompe-l'oeil or optical illusion, randomly installed by
artist Julien Berthier one Saturday morning in 2009. Over a decade later, the address, which takes up just 10 cubic
centimeters of public space still exists and is regularly maintained by a city services. Pump house. Number 3215 Wade Avenue located
in Raleigh, North Carolina looks like the perfect
spot to raise the family. Positioned on the sizeable plot of land with no nosy neighbors. In reality, this house
isn't really fit for anyone to live in. After all, there's no garage,
no driveway, no mailbox or even a path leading up
to the heavy front door, which is permanently locked. There would be no point to trick or treating at
this house on Halloween. Inside the spacious interior is actually a government
owned pump station, which supercharges millions
of gallons of water to flow uphill into the rest of the town. All you'll find behind
those boarded up windows is an array of noisy 70 sea
foam green painted machinery, which is probably why
the house is so isolated. Of around 20 different
pump stations in the city, this is the only one disguised
as a residential property. Why is it playing dress up? Well, the government
designed it this way in 1978, mostly out of courtesy to the otherwise attractive neighborhood. And it's even been constructed using sound dampening
materials like cinderblock instead of bricks it's and mortar. How thoughtful? Billion dollar secret. Back in 1962, this sleepy
town of Cochem-Cond, nestled in the slopes of the
Moselle Valley in Germany became one of the most unsuspecting hiding places in history. With the eminent threat
of war and hyperinflation suddenly on the horizon, the German government became
increasingly concerned about the safety of the
entire national economy. Fearing the introduction
of counterfeit money used to flatten the economy,
the immediate solution was to order an emergency mass printing of the Deutsche Mark, West
Germany's official currency. 15 billion German Marks
were produced in total but the next big question
was where exactly so much emergency cash
could be safely stored. Eventually a foolproof plan was hatched to build a fortified bank vault, disguised behind a fallout bunker, capable of withstanding a nuclear war. And government officials set their eyes on the ancient streets of
Cochem-Cond for the job. More specifically, these
two in conspicuous houses were selected as a prime location and a 15,000 square foot bunker, fitted with intricate air
electricity and water systems was built 30 meters below the earth. To throw neighbors off the scent, residents were only told
that a small fallout shelter was being built next door, in the event of an atomic attack. To ensure they stayed tight
lipped, they were also warned that if they told other
villagers about it, then there wouldn't be
room for their families in the underground retreat. It seems like a little
blackmail goes a long way because the bunker remained a secret as money gradually started arriving through a network of
secret tunnels in 1965. Far below these fo houses
were massive steel vaults, which required three different keys and a secret lock combination
to be brought over by officials from Frankfurt. For two decades, employees
entered the vault and painstakingly counted
the money by hand, until the unused currency was
eventually destroyed in 1988 and the bunker was vacated. Spare a thought for
those poor cash counters. Nowadays, the Buddhist bank
bunker has become a museum, after being purchased for
500,000 euros in 2014. And you can take a peek inside one of the most deceptive
houses in history. Which of these fake houses
would you most like to visit? And do you know of any in your hometown? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for watching.
