May 19th, 2025
1 reaction

Secret passages on Microsoft main campus, episode 3

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

Here’s another entry in the extremely sporadic series of secret passages on Microsoft main campus. (Part 1, Part 2.)

The Building 83 loading dock is attached to the Building 84 parking garage by a vehicle tunnel, but the tunnel is now blocked off by bollards. My guess is that the tunnel was originally intended to allow service vehicles from Building 84 convenient access to the Building 83 loading dock, but it had the side effect of allowing employees to drive between Building 84 and Building 83, and the unwanted traffic may have created problems, so they just erected bollards to close it off to vehicle traffic.

However, pedestrians can easily pass between the bollards. (Bicycles slightly less easily.) This creates a walkable/bikeable path from the southwest corner of the Building 84 parking garage on level P1 and the Building 83 loading dock on level P2, continuing up the ramp to level P1 and the Building 83 parking garage main entrance.

If you combine this tunnel with the existing passageway from Building 84 to Building 86, you have a path from Building 83 all the way to Building 86 without being exposed to the rain.

Category
Old New Thing
Topics
Non-Computer

Author

Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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  • Brian Beck

    Nice to see that some of these still exist. I've always enjoyed exploring buildings and knowing the paths at my workplaces (I made extensive use of the 86-84 garage path).

    My current employer wants all traffic to take the elevator from the parking garage, go through the lobby, and then take the elevator (or a series of a few different stairwells) up. This is annoying when I want steps or when there's a crowd (such as after a fire drill). To this end, all other stairwells are exit only (you can enter them from anywhere but...

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