The 1950s and early 1960s. A time of anxiety, dread, fear and paranoia. Fear of a nuclear war – one that would incinerate most of the worlds population in a matter of minutes. Anxiety that it would happen at any place, and at any time. Dread that it would happen when we were away from home. Paranoia that those with fallout shelters would be overrun by panicked neighbors and relatives. So it was no small wonder that Tranquilizers became huge business. Over-the-counter sleeping aids were flying off drugstore shelves and alcohol was the go-to elixir guaranteed to make the anxiety go away.
A family fallout shelter in the 1950s.
The Facility, a 12-bedroom apocalypse-ready pied-à-terre described in a 2015 listing (asking price: $17.5 million) as “the only fully renovated hardened and privately owned underground bunker of its kind in the United States today.”
“My higher range starts at $8m and those shelters have Jacuzzi tubs, a swimming pool for exercise and are about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide. Did you hear about Kim and Kanye getting one built? Yeah, that’s one of ours. I’m sure Kim’s will have a pool too. But look, my clientele goes up way higher than her.”
Bomb Shelter Food Rations
Exterior Entrance Group Shelter for Scientists at Lawrencce/Livermore Lab. This was built by a group of scientists 1961-62. Eight families share the shelter. Recently it was used by a 19-year-old college student for a Halloween party.’
page from a Fallout Shelter Coloring Book, 1962
Backyard Fallout Shelter can be beneficial inspiration for those who seek an image according specific categories.
This Is What A Billionaire’s Apocalypse Shelter Looks Like
For Sale in Fair Oaks, Calif. — $195,000
Boy Scouts fallout shelter parade float
The country’s first underground school, it is also the largest fallout shelter. It accommodates 540 children through sixth grade, can house 2,160 adults and children for two weeks as an emergency shelter. It’s built to withstand blast and fallout from a 20-megaton bomb.
Shipping containers were built to be stacked. They’re called Intermodal Freight Containers because they can be moved on trains, boats, helicopters, whatever. They are meant to be large portable closets. They were not to be buried or cut into, and certainly weren’t designed to be used as underground bunkers. Once you do that, you start changing their effectiveness. They are not built for lateral pressure and not designed for long-term wetness or acidic/caustic soil.
Sales of nuclear shelters and radiation-blocking air purifiers have surged in Japan in recent weeks as North Korea has pressed ahead with missile tests in defiance of U.N. sanctions.
This extensive nuclear fallout shelter built from 42 school buses could house 500 people in its tunnels.
Mr. and Mrs. John Schreiber and daughter Susan and Sidney Blanchard stand in their new bomb shelter in 1960.
A family in their underground lead fallout shelter, equipped with a geiger counter, periscope, air filter, etc., early 1960s.
Bomb shelter baby carriage.
Hubbard said his company is now on track to move more than 1,000 units this year, with some models retailing for as high as US$1.3 million. “A tornado shelter is like a butter knife, a fallout shelter is like a steak knife, and a bomb shelter is like a machete,” Hubbard said.
A Swedish doctor has been charged with drugging, raping and kidnapping a woman he allegedly imprisoned for six days in a windowless bomb shelter, Stockholm’s chief prosecutor says.
Susanne Kaplan stands in the bomb shelter beneath her Tucson home Friday August 20, 2004.
Doris and Alan Suter step down into the bomb shelter in the garden of their home at 44 Edgeworth Road, Eltham, London, SE9, sometime between June and August 1940.
The “Genesis” series represents the strongest, safest, best designed and built Underground Shelter System in the world.
Buy A 1960s Bomb Shelter In Bellflower For $820k
The people, the place, the work, the design and the passion!
Atlas Survival Shelter CEO Ron Hubbard has every reason to smile at growing sales, citing growth of a staggering 700 percent since Trump’s election in November 2016.
This family fallout shelter looks like it couldn’t protect squat. I mean, I’ve seen Lego creations that could probably do better.
Family Entering Bomb Shelter, 1939
JFK’s secret Florida Bomb Shelter
HIDDEN JFK NUCLEAR BOMB SHELTER ON PEANUT ISLAND (EVEN LOCALS DON’T KNOW )
Spare a thought for the unlucky estate agent charged with finding a buyer for this bizarre atomic bomb-proof bunker in Sweden. Built to withstand a nuclear attack, the bunker for sale in Boden, northern Sweden, was built 100 metres inside a mountain. The bunker also has some pretty unusual rooms inside: “The ground floor is today decorated as a laser game arena where guests play laser games and it is decorated with a space theme,” the listing explains. And the whole facility also has a Star Wars theme.
The lack of a corporate safe room is a potential liability. Consider that the capture or murder of a company’s executives would emotionally and financially devastate shareholders, expose insurers to potentially big payouts and leave other businesses in a state of constant worry. Simply said, safe rooms can be one component of your overall executive protection plan.
Proposed Underground Bomb Shelter, Los Angeles City Planning Commission, Rendot, 1951.
1958, Milwaukee
Buckminster Fuller 1940’s with his Bomb shelter
These concrete towers were unique AIR RAID SHELTERS of Nazi Germany, built to withstand the destructive power of WWII bombs and heavy artillery. Their cone shape caused bombs to slide down the walls and detonate only at a heavily fortified base. Cheaper to build above ground than to dig bunkers, they were quite effective, as it was possible to cram as many as 500 people inside. Plus the “footprint” of such tower was very small when observed from the air, so it was very hard for the bombers to ensure a direct hit. Hitler was quite impressed by Winkel’s concept and blueprints, and ordered full engineering and production support. They were meant to be shelters for factory workers and railroad personnel, to be placed mostly in heavily industrial areas, such as Giessen.
This is how modern bomb shelters look like. Of course, their prices are really high. This one, for example, costs $10 million.
Notice this design of shelter has an ‘L’ shaped entrance. Radiation travels in straight lines and cannot turn a corner. But like a lot of American Civil Defense planning it never seems to take into account radioactive fallout dust. I guess they assume that since this shelter is designed to be built inside a basement; the house structure above will act a suitable barrier and filter for the fallout dust.
3970 Spencer Street in Las Vegas, Nevada was last purchased in 2014 by a mysterious group called the Society for the Preservation of Near Extinct Species, who paid $1.15 million after the house was foreclosed on (original asking price: $8 million). It includes perhaps the world’s most stylish bomb shelter, which businessman Girard Henderson had constructed in 1978, 26 feet below the ground, with swimming pools, a sauna, a garden, fountains, waterfalls, a mini golf course, and a grill.
Companies like Rising S Co. in Texas say they have seen an increase in inquiries and sales for bomb shelters and underground bunkers like the one pictured.
Not only do mirrors make your home appear larger, they’re great for hiding bomb shelters.
“This is a great [way] to conceal your steel bomb shelter door: make it look like a concrete door,” says Neo.
In this March 23, 1951 file photo, two styles of bomb shelters are shown for sale at Bomb Shelter Mart in Los Angeles.
FDR’s Bomb Shelter
1950: Diagram of a typical subway bomb shelter proposed for New York City in a 104 Million dollar bomb shelter program outlined by the Board of Transportation.
Mary Lou Miner
Donald Trump’s secret bomb shelter: Apocalypse bunker on golf course REVEALED
Bomb shelter position was indicated by arrows painted on the walls.
Todd returns to his old home to see the bomb shelter.
During the last couple of years of WW2, our household was equipped (at government expense) with a Morrison (Air Raid) Shelter. This consisted of a 6′ 6” by 4′ steel cage about table height, made up of angle iron legs and a solid steel plate top. Inside was fitted with a bedspring on which you put a standard size mattress. Heavy steel mesh panels (removeable from the inside, covered the sides.
Ruth Colhoun and her daughters climbing down the stairs into their new underground atomic bomb shelter.
A 72 hour survival test of a typical family in a bomb shelter, circa 1955.
Bomb shelter in Tel Aviv
“The nation’s first fallout shelter to be built into a freeway” (May 15, 1962).
1962 Vertical fallout shelter
The bomb shelter looks… uh, great, boys! Can you build one in Anoka?
The fallout shelter built for the US Congress in the 1950s underneath the Greenbrier Resort.
Bomb shelter for children in Sderot, Israel
Vivos shelters are deep underground, fully self-contained complexes with more amenities that some hotels. We’re not just talking about customised living quarters and flat screen TVs – these are built with swimming pools, wine cellars, pet kennels, hydroponic gardens, gyms and medical facilities.
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p.s. Hey. ** Arno, Hi, Arno! My pleasure, happy you were so interested. Rome, very nice, especially when on a writing residency. And especially based on your description of what you’re working on. I hope to read the stories. I used to speak rudimentary Dutch okay, but I’ve basically lost it now. Yeah, ‘Closer’ and ‘Frisk’ were published in Dutch. I don’t think they did all that well, and then the publisher stopped with my books for basically the reason they gave you. Obviously, I’d love my books to be translated there. I lived in Amsterdam for close to three years, wrote ‘Closer’ and started ‘Frisk’ while there, so that would be really meaningful. Thank you a lot for wanting that and for championing my stuff. Great luck with the writing and finding whatever local inspiration you need. Anything more you can say about your writing? I’m very interested. Thanks!! ** Charalampos, Hi. Well, we’re starting to talk about the new film, and that’s exciting. I thought I would learn French just by living here, but, boy, that hasn’t happened. I’m rushing to get to the sound mix studio, but I’ll listen to that track later, thanks. My neighbors think I’m strange too, and I’m not really very strange, at least on the exterior. The new film idea is way too early to talk about, but I will at some point. Uh, I think I remember that cover. Enjoy the Purdy. Rainy here too, high vibes five. ** Zak Ferguson, No, thank you, Zak, for everything you do! xo. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. I like ‘Mario Party’. I don’t do fighting games. I’m a wandering evader of a player. Keep on keeping on, buddy. ** Dominik, Hi!!! It’s way too early to talk about the new film. It’s still very cloudy even to us. With ‘Room Temperature’, we had an idea about the setting/story first and then built characters to go with it, but with the new one we’re creating characters first and then we’ll decide what the world is that they live in. Ha, I always look at bubble tea and get excited, but when I tried to eat/drink it one time, I thought it was way more trouble than it was worth. So, yes, why? Love making a sound that would work perfectly as the sound of our film’s ghost, G. ** Jack Skelley, Tonight’s the night! Will this be the first time you see it in its totality? Dod you rent a tux? And a limo? And coke and whores? I want to hear. man! Bisous, moi. ** PL, Hi. Yeah, the island part really fucked me up as a kid in the best possible way. ‘Bambi’ was the first movie I ever saw in my life when I was still barely with brain power. I haven’t seen the ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ redo, but what I’ve heard is not very positive. Mm, I’ll have to think about animation recommendations because I’m rushing this morning. I don’t know that area as much as I wish I did. I just kind of dip in and out. There are some great experimental filmmakers who work with animation, but I’m blanking on their names. Mainstream-wise, I really liked Wes Anderson’s ‘Isle of Dogs’. And the first few Laika films. Illustrators … again, let me think about that. Thanks. Please feel free to share any discoveries, about animation and anything else. ** adrian, Hey! Ciao to you too, big time. I remember Concerto being not very big. I don’t remember it so well in general. Maybe there was a kind of open air second level? It sounds like it’s changed a lot, which of course it would. I do remember it was pricey even among all the record stores Amsterdam had back then. I remember the best record store was on Prins Kendrikkade near Centraal Station, but I don’t remember its name. Wait, maybe Boudisc? Sorry your class lagged, but happy to benefit from that. I’m good, working hard and rather endlessly to finish Zac’s and new film and almost nothing else. But I’m fine. And you generally and specifically? ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben! ** Bill, Yeah, very sad about Lyn Hejinian. Good, then, break artward not worldwide when spring comes. That’s a plan. I’ll delve into Robert Morgan’s short stuff. I don’t think I know it? Thanks. ** Guy, Aw, you’re too kind. Huh, I don’t remember reading ‘Dreamt Up’ aloud, curious. Sure, you can play it for the class, thank you. Exciting about the class and the students. Weirdly, I feel kind of similarly about the blog and how it makes me explore and research stuff all the time. Your slave sounds pretty ideal. Congrats to you both. Oh, then I want to read your story, great! When do you think it’ll hit the world, do you know? Very cool. I do seem to fit the Capricorn rules and regulations almost to a T. I hope the sword was swinging wildly. ** Steve Erickson, Yeah, Trevor Horn produced the first t.a.t.u. album. Or, if I’m remembering right, he re-produced it and beefed/sparkled it up and stuff. Luck on your back from a fellow back problem dude. I’ll look into dark animation as a post focus and see what I can do. ** Darby 📙💀, That’s a nice emoji couple too. You’re, like, the Cupid of the emoji world. My big hope is that they’ll find the lost original version of ‘120 Days of Sodom’ that Sade wrote and his family famously destroyed but … did they? Didn’t know that about France, but I’m not surprised. They have all kinds of weird laws here. American-style Macaroni and cheese is illegal here of all things. I hope your day lured you rightly. ** Justin, It really is a big long shot re: Cannes, but thank you. That would be insane. No, that translation of Vladimir Sorokin’s ‘Blue Lard’ was not on my radar, but now it is. Did you already get it? I’ll start my hunt. Did you find interest in ‘Blow Up’? ** Uday, Hey. Oh, okay, I know that kind of nothing. I thought you meant, like, lying on your back looking at the sky or ceiling as your mind peacefully drifted to and fro. That’s what’s beyond me. No, I agree about oldies, I do. I guess I just mean I feel less weird not knowing how to flirt at this point in my life. It’s actually pretty relaxing. That wasn’t harsh at all, it was thoughtful. Thoughtfulness is the best drug really. ** Okay, honestly, have you ever seen so many bomb shelters in your entire lives? See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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I love how many basements in old buildings are actually repurposed bomb shelters. I wonder if the popularity of the basement is a post-war phenomenon. Could be totally wrong. Pitfalls of commenting without taking the day to think of it I suppose. I don’t see looking at clouds as nothing because it’s very *something* to me but yeah I don’t think I could do it lying down, at least without somebody to talk to. I’m glad I’m not coming off as harsh because I’m very fierce in what I believe but I try my best to be nice. Promise. You’ll find out when we (hopefully) meet some day! Ok it’s almost 4 am here and I should sleep soon so that I can get up at 7 for class. Goodnight whenever you sleep! May your dreams be the lanterns that guide your boat through the darkness.
Thanks so much for the reply! This made my day here in rainy & gloomy Rome.
As someone who writes and is a bookseller, it is so infuriating to keep seeing these awful neoliberal market dogma’s pop up whenever you inquire about why book/author X or Y or Z is no longer in print. Sometimes I buy up stockpiles of books that I love (for the bookstore), because I just feel in my guts that the publisher won’t reprint them and I want to be able to sell them (or gift them) for as long as I can. My publisher is actually one of the few people out there in the Low Countries who still has the guts to go for difficult, high-risk low-yield kind of stuff (otherwise he would never have published me, I guess). He’s the one who actually put me onto your work ten years ago, so I owe him big time for that. He’s always giving me doubles of books that he loved, like yours, or anything by people like William T. Vollmann, Warren Ellis, Bataille, S. Delany, Urs Allemann (do you know his book “Babyfucker”?, really shocked my reading-world when I first read that).
As far as my own little writing practice is concerned: I published two books of poetry (2017 & 2022), and after the last one I sort of “dried up” politically & mentally. Which was fine, there’s other stuff in life than writing. I have my aging mother to take care of and things like that. So going to Rome, the plan was to jumpstart something new, to regain a sense of fun and adrenaline from writing, even it’s just for myself. I’m a big fan of writing that isn’t afraid of its own imagination or the consequences of what it dreams or talks up. So that’s why I had my heart set on the “scabreux”, to be able to get back to these raunchy, headstrong, morally bankrupt stories that are like a burning man running through a building screaming something in a language no one understands. Well, that’s the intention anyway.
So I set up some rules for myself, Oulipo-style. I loved how Stewart Home (big hero of mine, I interviewed him on stage last year in Belgium, spent three days with him, which was uncomfortably amazing) sometimes just decides to compose a book out of nothing but 100-word paragraphs and stuff like that. So I randomly decided on 250, to be able to compose cement-like blocks of 1.000 and use that as a writing-engine for my own mental health. It’s difficult to say what it’s “about”, as usually that kind of thinking leaves me paralyzed. I already said I have De Sade, Genet, Acker, Pasolini etc with me, so I guess it’s obvious it’s not anything conventionally heartwarming. My first book contained 5 long poems, my second book was just 1 long poem of 85 pages, so I’m not very interested in the dichotomy between prose & poetry. What I’m doing now feels the same like what I did before, just with more words. I always liked how Pasolini said he was mainly a poet, at heart, who “sometimes” would make movies. So when I read his Theorem-novel, which started as a long epic poem, then morphed into a movie, then ending up into a novel-like thing again, that just automatically makes sense to me. So to my mind’s eye I see a very loose bunch of fragments that are interconnected like cells in a membrane, each detailing some kind of aspect on this weird, highly sexual (but also super platonic and dream-like) friendship between two amorphous, vaguely-gendered people called “mal” and “T”, where you read from a future perspective back on the history of T’s love for this “mal” character (through notes, letters, redacted testimonies by interrogators, blog posts, chats, texts, advertisements in BDSM-journals, …) and slowly you get bits and pieces of info on some all-consuming mutual fascination for all sorts of paraphilia’s. But in the end, for me, it’s going to have to be about friendship, like a totalitarian, highly consuming and volatile friendship between two creatures who fall out of every category of social and political and sexual life.
Jeez, ok, that was maybe a bit too much of a try-hard answer to the question.
Looking forward to reading and seeing what you have in store for us! I loved all these pictures and diagrams of bomb shelters. There’s something very comforting about constructing your own slow demise like that. Like how can you cling to life so so badly that you would want to live out the remains of your Nuclear Winter-life trapped in a cement basement with friends & family. Maybe I will feel different when the bombs start to fall on Western Europe, but from where I’m sitting right now I’d just probably prefer to get super drunk or high and go sit on a mountain and be devoured by a bear or something.
Hi!!
I’ve always been drawn to bomb shelters. There’s something my hermit nature finds so cozy and charming about the fact that they’re these hidden and safe spaces full of food, etc., even though, in reality, most of them look/ed pretty depressing and bleak.
Yeah, I thought so – I mean that there wasn’t much to share about the new film idea yet – but I had to ask anyway because I got excited. And now I’m even more excited because my main focus is always on the characters in books, movies, series, etc. – everything else is secondary to them. My mind is always full of characters, too, and 99% of the time, they’re born first, and then their stories unfold around them.
Right? Bubble tea is a mystery.
I might be wrong, of course, but it looks like the ghost in “Room Temperature” likes to make you work hard – first, the challenges around them going through walls and now the perfect sound…
Love making me a tax expert by the end of the webinar I’m about to attend today, Od.
We had a spacious cellar in our home that I’d like to think could have doubled up as a bomb shelter back in the nuclear-paranoid 80s.
You may have been disappointed this year by the lack of festive Winter Blunderlands in the UK. However, fortunately enough Glasgow has now stepped into the breach with this disastrous Willy’s Chocolate Experience thing. “Police were called to a venue in Glasgow last weekend after furious families who had spent hundreds of pounds complained about the “awful” event that left children in tears and was abruptly cancelled midway through.” Thank goodness for House of Illuminati who really came up with the goods here.
Dennnnis — I should have just read today’s post rather than watch Oppenheimer. Re: Lynn Hejinian : I remember us other poets discovering her (and other “language” writers) and finding cool things in it. Palate cleanser? Yes, 2 nite is opening night. I’m saving the tux for closing nite (thurs) but it will be a cape instead. xoxoxo Jackkkkk
Dennis, You’re killing me (in a good way) with these days recently. Right in my wheelhouse. I’m gonna pretend you’re making them for me, hahaha. Bomb shelters/bunkers. Omg. I want one so bad. Love these. I was looking them up a couple months ago. People are getting them installed left and right, it seems.
I suck at Smash Bros. It’s because I’ve never taken the time to play all the different characters and figure out the combos on the buttons and shit. And I don’t have time during a game because everyone’s beating the shit out of me. Ugh. But it’s still fun to play with David and Kayla. The comments are fun. 😀
Thanks. I’ll keep on keeping on until it’s off. And then I’ll keep on keeping on anyway. I have no choice.
Happy you will listen to the t.A.T.u. song I hope you will feel the All Out in the Open connection
Yes I will enjoy Purdy when I am done with Muriel Spark Oh my she is great. I decided to buy two more of her books I am highly curious about they were both highlighted in this blog I think
I know this Purdy book is your fave by him but do you like Narrow rooms too? Haunting book title
I need to have a good look at his bibliography I think
Nice bomb shelter day It immediately made me think of the Frank Perry film Ladybug Ladybug
Love that film
When I was young I was extremely jealous of my cousin who learned French and it felt awful so I want to do it way better than her now It is a very village small minded way to think I just want to say it is a long time dream of mine to know good French I wish I knew the best way to learn but I choose the lonely way for now
There is always Time my friend to learn French and start scale modeling too 😉 😉
Happy film goings on
Hi from Crete
Hi, Dennis! I haven’t purchased ‘Blue Lard’ yet. Trying to decide if I want the paperback (it has lovely art) or just the Kindle edition. Re: Blow-Up, not sure why, but I think I was expecting it to be some sort of action-packed Noir, but I quickly realized it was more of a mood/vibe type of film so once I settled into the atmosphere of it, I enjoyed it. I especially loved the end with the mimes ‘playing tennis’. Today’s post is great. Sometimes I think I could easily live in one of those lux ‘shelters’ above as long as I could fill it with all of my favorite things. I somehow doubt it, though. Discovering new things to enjoy/cherish is too important. 📚🎞️🎨🎵
Hi Dennis, firstly, wow, what an interesting post! I also find it a bit anxiety-inducing. Do you think it’d be wise to invest in a bomb shelter with the state of the world and everything else? Some of these shelters seem cosy but they all look claustrophobic to me, obviously it’s far better than being bombed… Yes, my gorgeous friend, you did send me your reading of Dreamt Up very generously about four years ago… I can send it to you. It’s absolutely mesmeric and magical! It comes after your reading of My Past, which I’m so obsessed with I kind of know by heart at this point. I know what you mean re doing research for your blog; I’ve always found your blog to be a kind of school, too. Obviously, an exciting one! There is so much to learn here, and I keep learning new stuff from it. Apparently, my story will be published in a few weeks time!!! I’ll try and score a copy of the chapbook for you from the publisher. My slave sounds ideal in theory, and he certainly did at the beginning, but as time passes, he’s becoming more and more of a mystery to me. His communication with me is very patchy and chaotic, and mentally, he is extremely fragile. And there is of course the issue of his marriage and possibly drugs… it’s really far from ideal at the moment. At this point, I just hope I won’t regret this saga of my life. My sword instructor on the other hand is the picture of health and fitness. I’ve started to learn a bit of Japenese now! I’m secretly desperate to become a bit like him/ be liked by him haha. Do you ever find that when you like someone you also want to become like them a bit? I often end up mirroring my crushes a bit – could be my Gemini moon! Yes, you are a true Capricorn, and I usually love Capricorns. My partner is also a Capricorn as well as Mishima – in fact they were born on the same day…! Hope you’re having a gorgeous morning ☕️
I do have some good news on the health front. Eating a vegan diet for the last week cleared up the stomach trouble I felt, so it may have been lactose intolerance (which my mom developed in middle age), not a bug. I’m gonna try to stick to it, although I’ve never managed to leap from vegetarian to vegan for more than a month. I was able to book an appointment to see a cardiologist in April.
Heavy rain and wind in New York tomorrow, with temperatures in the 60s! Time to stay in and work on writing.
I began reading a George Santos biography today. (I feel less guilty now that his 15 minutes of fame as a meme have passed.)
The bomb shelter morphed into Peter Thiel’s bunker in New Zealand. Did you ever watch the TV series DOOMSDAY PREPPERS?