Location Smakkelaarshoek - Smakkelaarscorner (near Creative Valley)

Welcome to what we now call the Smakkelaarshoek or: Smakkelaars corner. We stand here at the bottom of Station Square with in the middle of the big staircase the entrance to the largest bicycle-parking garage in the world. More than twelve-thousand-five-hundred bicycles can be parked here on three floors that run all the way under the square. On the other side of the square you will find the Moreelsehoek with the other entrance of that gigantic parking facility. Here, in the Smakkelaarshoek you see a brown-red building on the side of the railway: the Noordgebouw. In that building, between the Intell Hotel and Creative Valley, is the entrance to the Noordertunnel, where you will find an alternative walking route to several train platforms of Utrecht Central Station. This tunnel once housed a large nuclear bomb shelter. The air-raid shelter was set up during the Cold War in the 1970s. Complete with access lock, air purification system and emergency power supply. The widest part of the Noordertunnel formed the actual shelter, which could be closed with movable concrete walls. The shelter was intended to protect 2,000 people from radioactive radiation for up to 48 hours with minimal amenities. The installations were maintained until 1991. The air-raid shelter was eventually dismantled in 2016 to make room for the foundation of the North Building. Because a nuclear war, that will never happen again. Will it?