Did you know about The Victor Catacombs in Camden, NJ?
Maybe you knew it! but for those that didn’t …OR for those that may have forgotten…many feet below the remaining buildings of the Victor Talking Machine Co. (Victor Records) plant in Camden, NJ lay a vast series of human height and width tunnels colloquially known as ‘The Victor Catacombs’ either because it sounds freakier OR; (quite literally) if one were to gain access to the tunnel remains….one might end up never returning to the surface.
Portions of the ‘Victor Catacombs’ were built starting in the early 1900s by The Victor Talking Machine Co. and maintained later by RCA-Victor Co. after their merger in 1929. Through the years - and into the 1980s and early 1990s - the tunnels would slowly be sealed off or collapse as either a result of demolition of the above building or road - OR on their own due to a rising water table from the nearby Delaware River.
Either way, the Victor Catacombs represent an interesting chapter in a lot of industrial era areas that had companies with powers and influence as large as The Victor Talking Machine Co. on the city of Camden, NJ (and world) - basically; if you were one of the city’s largest employers in the early 1900s-1950s…there was very little you COULDN’T do.
The rationale for building a system of walk betweens was several to executives of The Victor Co:
This all may beg the question…”why do?”
I am glad you asked!
A diagram showing off the fairly sizable 6 for 4 passage ways and their piping as they connect to each building’s sub floors. Shown here are buildings 1, 2 and 3. (Building 3 would soon be renamed building 8 - Building 2 was newly constructed in 1918 - and didn’t yet have a number name - meanwhile; Building 2 (which was then the original executive office building and recording studios and NOT the 201 North Front St. Property) would be renamed Building 15 due to its proximity to what would soon become known as Building 17 (The Nipper Tower Building) by 1919.
1. In theory, they represented a means of getting critical employees from building to building in either an emergency or in every day use - not dissimilar to a skybridge (which Victor eventually built partially as a replacement for this concept); on paper, the subterranean throughways were for utility piping systems around the plant.
2. The Victor Co often had upwards of 10,000 employees in Camden, NJ alone - the catacombs allowed critical basement or ground system workers to remain in the sub floors without creating more building foot traffic in a pre worker’s rights/fire code era. The Victor Catacombs also had - until at least the 1950s - access to the now presumably ‘goonies’ like Victor Train Maintenance sub shed (assuming this isn’t fully filled in - which it may very well be)…some former employees believe there is a sub-ground depot with a former Victor Company TRAIN just waiting to be discovered (I cannot confirm this as fact or fiction….but its fun!)
1 of 4 Victor Plant train engines that allowed for the movement of materials between buildings AND for the connection of finished Victrola(s) and Victor Records to be offloaded via boxcar to the nearby Pennsylvania Railroad for distribution.
3. They allowed for the entirely incognito movement of both music industry trade secrets - and national safety related US Government experiments, documents, and contractors. Victor’s industrial growth meant it had formed the largest and most prolific laboratories for the study of sound and sound related communications technology in the world - with large (and generally sound related) scientific experimentation occurring at Victor Bldg. 10, 15, 13, 8, and administrated through Victor Bldg. 2….the US Government often tasked secretive sectors of the company with the development of (among other things) - sound related radar research and the Albert Einstein assisted microphone technology that would aim the first atomic weapons at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. In the early years, methods of recording - experimental materials and studies with which major music industry/sound recording industry strides were made were often carried through these spaces to avoid very prevalent corporate espionage. In fact, the USSR & the UK is known to have infiltrated the RCA/Victor Laboratories at Victor Bldg. 10 - the FBI regularly conducted and documented suspicious employees (which still didn’t stop spies from handing off critical information to The Rosenbergs - and eventually, the USSR.
4. The Victor Catacombs allowed upper executives and select workers to break strike lines in the 1930s. The Victor Company managed to avoid major unionizing through the 1900s and into the 1930s - around the time Eldridge R. Johnson (co-founder of the company) sold off his ownership *which would soon become merged with the manufacturing of New York City based Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA, of course - thought of The Victor Co. as their ticket into the hearts and minds of millions around the world through not only their massive 3 decade old distribution - but their exclusive vast music and artist catalog, experience and facilities in manufacturing, and of course; their beloved brand. Hard to believe it now, but RCA being a radio company meant that they were chief competitors of The Victor Co. - which had largely invented and brought music to the home in the form of the RECORD and RECORD PLAYER. RCA had not really been in manufacturing - relying on licensing their technology out to other companies (including Victor for a time) OR contract manufacturing early RCA products - the company merged with Victor in 1929; and operated ‘The Victor Division’: a new company formed from this merger (RCA/Victor Co.) from their vast headquarters in New York City - making Victor the manufacturing and MUSIC arm of the company; and NBC their broadcasting/radio arm. All of this occurred at the start of one of the world’s great calamities; The Great Depression. As The Victor Co. in Camden, NJ struggled - RCA ordered them to slash jobs, benefits, and pay; which created some of the first major strikes by the early and mid 1930s. Surely, the Victor executives of the 1930s were grateful to the Victor executives of the 1900s when they utilized the tunnel system to escape rioting by union members in 1936.
The ‘Victor Catacombs’ are one of those mysterious items in Victor-lore that only grows larger with time.
A blocked up entryway to the Victor Catacombs at Victor Talking Machine Co. Bldg. 2 (201 North Front St. Camden NJ) Not a great photo, but there are two side by side doors about 6 foot 4 inches in height - in the foreground an early 1930s era unmotorized assembly line section lays on the floor in a world of industrial era soot; you name it - the chemicals were in this pile.
What is left of them? I’m not sure - entirely - I don’t think anyone can be. In 2017, The Victor Company (with myself included) undertook with developers the ‘gutting’ of Victor Bldg. 2 (and 3) ahead of moving our offices/recording facilities back to the old Camden Plant. I travelled to the basement of Victor Bldg. 2 (The named ‘Victor Records Building’ at 201 North Front St. Camden, NJ) to see if the stories I’d heard were true. It didn’t take long to find the access points in Victor Bldg. 2’s basement. 2 thinnish doorways slightly lower than my height (I am 5 foot… 16 inches) - each heading towards Cooper St. indicated strongly that the ‘Victor Catacombs’ were not only ‘real’ but that they were probably still - at least partially - still sitting in dead air and blocked up.
The same entry ways were found later - in much the same manner - in the basement of Bldg. 17 (where I am writing this from!), and Bldg 8 - and these correspond to the the Victor Camden Plant engineering documents we have at The Victor Vault’s archives which document double tunnels between buildings 1, 2, 15, 17, 8, and all the way out to 10 and 13.
Victor Bldgs 10, 12, and 13 were demolished in 1997 - Victor Bldg 14 was demolished in 1971 (it became a parking lot for 10, 12, 13) - it is also the closest tunnel set to the waterfront…when these tunnels became inoperable is anyones guess (and HOW they became inoperable is even more of a guess)….one can assume, however that it would be hard for these to remain existent given the proximity of the Delaware River…BUT if you’re reading this and you know….let us know! info@victorrecords.com
Evidently, the catacombs were never intended for everyday foot traffic - as Victor embraced the skywalk fairly early (this photo is from 1914 - we can see the original Eldridge Johnson Workshop Garage to the right of building 18 and 3 (future 8). This would soon be demolished to make way for Building 1 (Shipping department - which itself was demolished in 1978 and is now a parking lot for Building 17).
In 1971, Victor Bldg. 15 became a parking lot for Victor Bldg. 17 (which was redeveloped into a mixed used property often called ‘The Nipper Building’) in the 2000s. The tunnels located in this property appear to have been more freshly sealed - however; the fact that they attached to both buildings 1 (demolished in 1978), 10, 12, 13 (demolished in 1997), AND Bldg 15. (demolished in 1971- which in itself connected to Building #2) - means that these tunnels have about 3 possible (and sometimes simultaneous) fates; largely filled in during the demolition, collapsed in due to building weights/construction/lack of maintaining them/river water erosion, or sitting - empty - untouched for over 30 years (or more) now…just waiting to either represent a danger to the public…or a high opportunity for Geraldo Rivera.
The side of Victor Building 12 during the 1950s having a portion of its tunnels filled in after being decommissioned for safety reasons.
The stories we’ve heard thus far from ‘The Victor Family’ include everything from collapsing tunnels, to company-wide light prostitution rings, to wharf rats traveling the tunnels, to a ‘good ol’ time’, to a ‘bad ol’ time’, to card games, to stolen company materials, to fear while traveling the tunnels…and everything in between. Apparently, for some, this tunnel system was either a good or bad memory - and we’d love to hear from YOU if you happen to know anymore about this piece of colloquial Victor/Camden history. As more members of the RCA-Victor Family journey towards the next great adventure - these very human memories are leaving the collective consciousness of history at a faster rate than anyone could have dreamed. Its this type of oral history recounting that The Victor Sound Foundation & The Victor Company itself have been documenting for the last decade - we hope you’ll share this with the Victor/RCA/GE/L3 family members in your life that may want to contribute their personal recollections (if they have any!) of the Victor Catacombs (tunnels) beneath the Victor Plant in Camden, NJ.