AN URBAN LEGEND
Downtown’s ‘Tunnel Lady’ has seen it all during her long career of guiding tourists.
Sandra Lord knows more about downtown Houston than just about anyone.
She knows who designed every skyscraper and can recall which company moved into which building. Since moving here in the late 1980s, the Pittsburgh native began leading walking tours of Houston’s urban landscape.
Her tour groups would often descend into downtown’s labyrinth of tunnels for a break from the rain or heat, which eventually earned her the nickname “the Tunnel Lady.”
Her company, Discover Houston Tours, has veered away from downtown at times. In 2006, it offered an Enron tour with stops at the homes and hangouts of the company’s fallen leaders. There’s also an annual “Ghost Walk” — usually around Halloween — and a “Riding the Rails” tour on Metro’s Red Line. Q: What drew you to the tour guide business?
A: I’ve lived in San Francisco and Philadelphia and Paris and London, and so I was used to having tours available. Tours were wonderful ways for me to learn.
I moved here in July of 1984. After three years, I got tired of listening to myself complain: It was too hot. It was too humid. Nobody appreciated history. There was nowhere to go walking. An inner voice said, ‘Sandra, if you want to do something and it’s not there, it’s called a niche opportunity.’ So I went down to City Hall to the new business office, and I told the lady behind the desk I wanted to do walking tours. Q: When did you start taking folks down into the tunnel? A: I knew the tunnel existed, but I hated it. It was the old tunnel. It was dark and had bad directions. And I’m dyslexic, so I have trouble with directions.
What happened was on my first tour it rained, and on my second tour it was too hot, so we kept going down to the tunnels. I realized I better get rid of my dislike for the tunnel, so I began to walk every single inch of it. I researched it. And then I fell in love with it.
Q: Despite being known as the Tunnel Lady, your tours combine the underground with street-level landmarks, right?
A: They always have. Thousands and thousands of people have taken these tours, so I’ll get a year where everyone’s saying: ‘You’re not showing enough of the tunnel. I want to see more of the tunnel.’ So there was one year I did a tour that was totally underground. About halfway through they said, ‘This is all the same.’ Trust me, folks, I know my territory. You’re just repeating shops and restaurants, shops and restaurants. I mean, it’s for the people who work downtown. It’s not a tourist attraction. Q: So why do you love it? A: There is nothing like this anywhere in the world. We have something totally unique. It is private property, most of it. Q: What do you show people down there? A: I want to show them Philip Johnson’s architecture. I want to show them the historical frescos in the Chase Bank building. But in order to do that in the depths of August — now, this has been a mild summer, but if we had had 99-degree days with 99 to 100 percent humidity, being outside would not be fun — it would actually be dangerous. So I take them in and show them this tunnel to get them from place to place.
Q: After the attacks of Sept. 11, commercial building owners ramped up security like never before. How did that affect your tours?
A: My business almost died. In June we had Tropical Storm Allison, and the tunnel flooded. No one was calling for my tunnel tours. But people still wanted to go to the Sky Lobby. But then we had 9/11, and now you can’t go to the Sky Lobby. Then in December of 2001 Enron goes bankrupt. Q: How’d you get through? A: I literally was selling my CDs to buy groceries. I downsized to a small apartment. Time passes, people forget, and by 2004, life was good again. Q: Who takes your tours? A: I get a lot of families who have relatives coming to visit, and the families come from all over the world. I have senior citizen groups. I have school groups. I have businesses. Back in the days when the tunnel was more controlled, more formal, when Dynegy moved into Wells Fargo Plaza they hired me to train their employees how to use the tunnel. That’s when everybody knew to walk two by two to the right. If you didn’t want to get dinged going around the corner, you better be on the right side.