Traverse Canal still runs under Smith Street
Most people walk Smith Street without noticing the cut. It's easy to miss—just a gap between two brick storefronts, halfway down the block where the old barbershop meets the frame repair place. A painted arrow on the brick, faded to almost nothing, points down.
The path drops fast. Ten steps and you're below street level, the noise of traffic muffled by the retaining walls. The Traverse Canal ran here from 1847 until the city covered most of it in the 1920s. This section stayed open because the grade made it cheaper to leave the channel than fill it.
What you'll see
The canal bed is dry most of the year, paved over in patches with old cobbles that came from somewhere else. The walls are original stonework—gray granite blocks fitted tight, some with iron rings still mortared in. The mills used to tie off lumber rafts here before hauling loads up the ramps.
Walk south and the cut opens into a wider basin where the textile operations pooled water for the wheels. Now it's a small courtyard with a few benches, used mostly by people from the print studio that took over the old dye house. The studio keeps irregular hours but sometimes props the loading door open on Thursdays.
Keep going and the path narrows again, running under two buildings that were built across the canal after it stopped flowing. The tunnels are short—brick barrel vaults with enough headroom if you're not tall. They're lit, barely, with old fixtures that might be original or might just be made to look that way.
The southern exit comes out near the archive building on Traverse Street, which is how the canal got its name. The cut continues south from there but it's fenced off for structural work that's been ongoing since at least 2019.
When to walk it
Midday is fine. The walls block wind and the path stays dry unless it's been raining hard. Evening is better if you want it empty—most people who know about the cut use it as a shortcut during work hours.
Avoid it after heavy rain. The stonework drains slowly and the lower sections pool.
Getting there
Smith Street between the barber and the frame shop. If you hit the corner store you've gone too far north. The cut is not marked on most current maps but it's been open as a public right-of-way since the 1950s.
The walk from one end to the other takes about eight minutes. Longer if you stop in the basin or if the print studio door is open and you want to look in.
For more walks through the city's overlooked infrastructure, see our neighborhoods coverage.