You’d never know it by walking the streets above, but there is a tunnel beneath the Third Ward connecting three of the numerous buildings that once comprised the large Phoenix Knitting Company complex in the neighborhood.

The tunnel, which is walkable even today, connects buildings No. 3 and 4 – 207 and 219 N. Milwaukee St., respectively – with the so-called Dye House, at 320 E. Buffalo St., which is, for now, the tallest building in the Third Ward. (That will change when the new 31-story riverfront tower currently under construction is completed.)

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Another former Phoenix building survives across Chicago Street at 180 N. Broadway. It’s unclear whether or not that one was also connected underground, but it would make sense.

Phoenix also used 302 E. Buffalo as storage for a time.

Phoenix – founded in 1880 by  Dernehl & Wilde – took its better-remembered name in 1897, five years after the fire destroyed hundreds of buildings and entire city blocks of the Third Ward.

The company, which made a variety of textile products – women’s and men’s hosiery (like nylons and socks) and gloves and mittens among them – had about 150 employees and was running 100 knitting machines around the time of the fire.

In the first couple decades of the 20th century, booming business led Phoenix to expand greatly.

Building 3, designed by Kirchhoff and Rose, was completed in 1916 and it was designed to hold stock in the basement, as well as part of the first floor, which also had a finishing department. The floors above were occupied by knitting machines.

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The following year, the seven-story Plant No. 4, designed by architect Otto Uehling, opened and contained a dye facility in the basement, first-floor printing and shipping facilities, a second-floor packing room and five floors of knitting machines.

In 1922, the eight-story Dye House – designed by architectural/engineering firm Lockwood & Greene – was completed to the north, across Buffalo Street.

Phoenix employed thousands of Milwaukeeans across the decades, many of them women. But after promising not to slash expenses by moving its operations down south, Phoenix ended up doing just that in 1954, although it kept a few hundred workers here to operate its offices, warehousing and finishing departments.

In 1959, the company was acquired and its Milwaukee operations shuttered.

But seven years earlier, In 1952, Phoenix sold plant No. 3 to Metropolitan Property Corp., which leased it to other users for use as a factory and warehouse and as office space, including by Sac Bros., a wholesale and retail art and school supplies firm that was there from 1965 to ‘75.

It has also been leased in the past to the Milwaukee School of the Arts, the Potter's Wheel  pottery studio and sales room and Zahn-Klicka-Hill, a typesetting firm, as well as for some residential condos.

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Until recently, it was occupied by Zizzo Group, before that PR firm bought and renovated a building across the river in Walker’s Point in 2022.

Beginning in 1956, building No. 4, which had been made largely redundant after the 1954 manufacturing move, was used largely by other businesses as offices, warehousing and light manufacturing.

Another Phoenix facility just to the north, which surely would’ve also been connected to the tunnel, has long since been demolished and used as a surface parking lot.

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The Dye House has had many uses over the years, including many as home to Jack Gardner’s ArtCraft company, which manufactured seats for Greyhound buses, Amtrak trains, airliners and more.

The company moved from Pittsburgh Avenue in the early 1970s and remained into the mid-1990s. In more recent years, it’s been home to Halling & Cayo, The Art Institute and the MODA3 apparel and footwear.

It was sold to Chicago-based Singerman Real Estate in 2018, which has undertaken numerous renovations and upgrades.

But, fortunately, the tunnel is still accessible and if you’re willing to step into the darkness – and occasionally get a face full of cobwebs – it will lead you under Buffalo Street, under the surface lot across the street, and beneath building No. 4 before bringing you into the lower level of building No. 3 at Chicago Street.

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Along the way there are some rooms that lead off to the sides and one space seems to run beneath the sidewalk on the west side of Milwaukee Street.

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In at least one section there are broad brick arches and in another, rather decorative pillars. In one room, off to the west (I think; remember, we’re underground, it’s easy to lose your bearings), the floor has been jackhammered into giant pieces of concrete.

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Interestingly, along part of the northernmost section of tunnel, there are brackets along one wall for shelving, suggesting the space was used for some sort of storage for a time.

There are some steam and other pipes down here, as well as sections of wall made of cinder block that looks relatively recent.

At the south end is a wooden interior-style door that leads into the lower level of building No. 3, where the basement has been converted to parking.

It would seem safe to assume that another tunnel led across Chicago Street to building No. 1, but I didn’t get to see it. If I get a chance to poke around down there, I will definitely update this post.