8th and K

It looks like a prison, but actually, you're looking at a picture of Sacramento's early history. In the late 1800s, businessmen banded together and trucked in enough dirt to raise the streets of the downtown area closest to the river by 10 feet to resist the annual floods. This made the 2nd floor the first floor, and the former street-level 1st floor became the basement. Recently, a building was torn down at the corner of 8th and K Streets, and in the empty lot, the arches raising the street are visible. The pavement in the foreground is the current street level.

There is an underground warren of tunnels and basements that few have ever visited, and that is used by homeless people for shelter. Occasionally, the fires they build to cook over or warm themselves by get out of hand and the old building overhead becomes a blazing inferno. That's what happened to the building that used to stand where the empty lot is. There have been holes like this one in the blocks around the library for the last 15 years. They are slowly being built up again - too slowly - but the new buildings are adding cachet to the old downtown area. This one is right across the street from the library.