All language subtitles for A.E.S15E03.1080p.WEB.h264-CODSWALLOP_track3_[eng]

One man's eccentric vision in
the jungles of Malaysia...

Many locals are convinced that this
site is haunted

and you can understand why,

this building has seen a lot of
action

and not all of it was pleasant.

..a pioneering palace in Chicago,

the largest of its kind in the world.

It was IMAX before they even
invented IMAX.

..Nazi towers in Berlin defended to
the bitter end by

the only fighters left in town...

Let's call them what they were,
they were child soldiers.

..and a castle-like compound in San
Francisco born out of

the ashes of tragedy.

It's the brainchild of a man who
wants to revolutionise an industry

but all of his efforts would be
undone by a radical national reform.

In the German capital is
a rare survivor of a time when

the city resembled
a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

We're in the centre of Berlin
and in a public park,

there is what appears to be a hill

and as you get closer it has got

a massive old building right in
the middle of it.

It's got these two really huge
protrusions that, kind of, look like

castles but it's just a big, hulking
mass of concrete.

Once you get inside, you realise
there is much more to this place

than is immediately visible above
the ground.

It seems to disappear into the
earth.

We are only getting a fractional
glimpse at the size of it.

You can see blasts, dings,

chunks that have been ripped out of
the concrete.

When the enemy was at Berlin's
doorstep,

this structure became both
a target and a lifeline...

The city's inhabitants came
streaming in to what was one of

the last safe places in the city.

These towers are the last thing
keeping Berlin alive.

But it wasn't soldiers manning the
tower, it was women and children.

The kids got as young as about 14
years old.

..yet they would rather die
than surrender.

This became the final holdout in
the last stand of the Third Reich.

The first time I came in here I had
already built it up in my head

and even that didn't live up in
the slightest

to what we were actually seeing.

Athena Kerins works for an
organisation that has unearthed

hidden layers of this structure.

The scale of this building when
it was still standing is almost

impossible to comprehend.

For decades, it's sat as an
inaccessible hunk

of concrete on top of this park.

Surrounding it were tales

and rumours from Berlin's darkest
days under the Nazi regime.

Hermann Goering, the Commander of
the Luftwaffe, promised

the people of Germany that

Berlin would never be bombed.

But early in the Second World War,

a mistake by a German pilot started

a chain reaction that proved
Goering wrong.

On the 24th of August 1940
a German bomber gets lost,

it accidentally drops
a rack of bombs on to London.

Revenge was swift.

British Prime Minister, Winston
Churchill, immediately ordered

the Royal Air Force to retaliate.

That first night only 22 planes
actually made it to Berlin.

Most got lost in bad weather and
missed their targets.

The only damage inflicted was to kill
an elephant at Berlin Zoo,

yet it proved British bombers had the
range to strike the German capital.

It was enough to break the illusion
that Berlin was safe

and the vulnerability of Berlin was
exposed incredibly quickly.

And at that time, in that summer of
1940,

we get the escalation of city
bombing.

London was pounded for 57 days
straight in

a campaign that was later named
the Blitz.

While going on the attack, the Nazi's
began to bolster defences

in their own capital.

And in order to protect the city the
Nazi's build

massive anti-aircraft towers.

The German word for anti-aircraft is
flugabwehrkanone,

anti-aircraft canons and that
shortens to flak.

These were flak towers, flakturme.

This is the Humboldthain flak tower.

Its design reflects Hitler's specific
whim

which he sketched on a scrap of
paper.

These towers were originally meant
to deter planes from coming

near the centre of the city and

the idea that Hitler had in his
mind was something

a bit like a mediaeval castle.

They take thousands of soldiers

and hundreds of POWs

to build these towers in just
less than six months.

Six storeys high,

the four towers were topped
with flak guns

and anti-aircraft machine guns.

The dream was partially to show

the military might of his empire

but also to actually serve
a military purpose.

In late 1943 Allied bombers shifted
their focus from industrial districts

to civilian neighbourhoods.

The flak tower was called into
action on an almost daily basis.

People maybe more familiar with

the bombing of London known as
The Blitz

but in terms of numbers it doesn't
compare with

the bombardment of German cities.

Those people defending this flak
tower witnessed 363 air raids

strike Berlin.

People who were in this building
during air raids said that

it, kind of, felt like being on a
ship at sea,

even though it was a massive
concrete building secured on

an 84-metre sand bed, still it
rocked with the guns.

As bombing intensified, citizens
sought refuge

from the Allied onslaught.

In addition to serving as
flak towers,

this is going to be a perfect place
for an air raid shelter.

Slices of Berlin life had to move
into the Humboldthain flak tower,

there were children who were
going to school,

there were maternity hospitals,

it was the only safe place in
Berlin to give birth.

As the Allies advanced on
Berlin from all sides,

the Nazi's shipped out every soldier
available to the front lines.

For every man that they sent out

they brought in about eight
children.

The way that they sold this to the
parents is they say,

"Here they'll be safe, they'll be in
a bomb-proof building,

"they'll still do their 18 hours
of school a week

"but during the night they will be
heroes of the Reich.

"They will be defending our city."

The official title of these children
who were working

and fighting here were the
Luftwaffenhelfer,

the air force helpers.

Let's call them what they were,

they were child soldiers.

These kids were about to come up
against an army thirsty for revenge.

Berlin, April 1945.

Soviet troops were the first of
the allied forces

to arrive at the city's doorstep.

On the 16th they crossed
the Oder River.

The Battle of Berlin had begun.

But the mass of Berlin's defence
was teenagers,

old people,

women who'd been bought in
to fire anti-aircraft guns,

they were given a hasty
preparation,

handed a weapon

and being told the Russians are
coming, start shooting.

As the Soviets got even closer
to the city,

many Berliners,
many of whom were already homeless,

started flooding into
the flak tower.

This building that was
originally designed

to only host about 15,000 civilians
regularly had up to 50,000.

The Humboldthain flak tower was
targeted as

a major obstacle

to Soviet advances into
the centre of the city.

You can only imagine
the deafening sound of bombs

and artillery hitting the walls.

It must have felt like

the whole place was gonna collapse
in on you.

Despite a barrage of artillery, the
towers with their eight-feet-thick,

reinforced concrete walls held firm.

But Berlin was crumbling around them

and Hitler saw the writing on
the wall.

The Humboldthain is not far from
Hitler's bunker

and when the news came that
Hitler had killed himself,

that the Fuhrer was dead,

they lost the ability to cope.

The Soviets were particularly
brutalised by Nazi ideology,

the men coming in here did have
revenge on their mind

which also led to large swathes of
suicides,

particularly among women and girls,

many of whom threw themselves down
the spiral staircase instead

of living in a world where they
had lost.

But their sons and brothers, the
young boys left behind

refused to lay down their arms.

Even after Hitler kills himself,

even after Berlin surrenders,

these towers just keep on fighting.

They held out for another day after

the city garrison had surrendered

but finally Soviet troops took
the building on

the 3rd of May 1945.

It was one of the few structures
left standing,

over 80% of the city has been
levelled.

After World War Two Berlin was
divided into different sectors,

the French are gonna control

the sector that has these
flak towers.

Their attempt to demolish them only
partially succeeded,

leaving two of the four
towers standing.

And they rapidly determine that
they cannot realistically destroy

the flak tower without destroying
Berlin around it

so the French decide to bury it.

Berlin was massively destroyed
so rubble from across

the entire French sector was piled
up to make

a small mountain atop of
the building

and that is what we see today.

At the time it was simply
a pile of rubble

but over the years it's become
covered with topsoil,

with trees, with bushes and now it
is a beautiful park

with this massive relic in the
middle.

For decades, people wanted to forget
the horrors of the war

and the towers' legacy remained
buried

until the Berlin Underworlds
Association began digging.

A historical society found
an entranceway in the rubble

and an entire subterranean world
opened up.

They began to lead the public into
these fated hallways

for the first time in 60 years.

In a busy neighbourhood
of North Chicago,

an ornate structure stands out from
the crowd.

On one of these streets we see this
massive facade with

the word Uptown emblazoned on it.

When you step into this place it's
almost like you're being transported

into another world.

There's grand columns that are
reaching into the ceiling.

There's relief carvings everywhere
you look

and a sweeping staircase in
the lobby.

There are thousands of upholstered
chairs facing a grand stage.

This was a place to entertain.

Once the jewel in the city's crown,

it was the largest of its kind in
the world.

But a reckoning was coming that
would bring this party

to an end.

And ultimately make way for
a new one.

One man saw the opportunity

to bring new life into
this building.

You walk into this place

and you can't help but fall in love
with it.

A new era saw the volume cranked up
to 11.

All the shows that played here were
top notch performers on their

way up.

David Syfczak has been a custodian of
this historic building

for nearly 30 years but he first
visited as a young boy

in the late 1950s.

We'd come see the feature films with
my parents.

I would come here, order my popcorn

and through the windows, here,
I could still watch the film.

This was still the golden age
of Hollywood,

a time when the cinema was king.

In these days before television,

movies played a huge role in
people's lives,

especially people who lived in
cities like this.

People were going to the movies as
much as three times a week

and sometimes they would sit
through a double feature.

In this hay day of films,

lavish cinemas were popping up
across the country.

And I'm of the age where every
theatre was a movie palace

so I was under the impression that

every neighbourhood had one of
these.

Little did I know how special this
building actually was.

This is the Uptown Theatre.

It opened in 1925 to great fanfare.

To mark the occasion the entire city
turned out.

There were two whole weeks of

parades and 12,000 people were out
on the streets.

This theatre had seating for 4,500
people making it

the biggest movie theatre in
the world at the time it opened.

Know we're 131 full time
employees here.

Not a single expense was spared.

The lobby for example was modelled
after the Palace of Versailles.

So as you entered
the grand lobby here,

immediately your eyeballs popped
out at the opulence of the theatre.

The chandeliers alone cost $30,000
back in 1925 when it opened,

that would be something like half
a million today.

At one point there was even a
Rembrandt

hanging on one of the walls.

The auditorium is so vast that
the screen was 60 by 30

so it was IMAX before they even
invented IMAX.

The building as a whole was designed
to function as a one stop shop.

This was built for an urban
pedestrian

street-car-riding population

so they had amenities,
they had a nursery,

you could drop your kids off

and go see an afternoon matinee.

Can you imagine people doing
that today?

It's...It's...It's just
inconceivable.

For decades the Uptown Theatre
thrived

and was at the heart of the local
community.

But, the popularity of home
television sets in the 1950s

was accompanied by dramatic
changes to cinema building.

The priority was now on quantity
not quality.

It was hard for them to compete
with a multiplex

built out by the interstate
somewhere that might have

eight or 12 screens.

This shift in movie going made
these really lavish places like

Uptown completely obsolete.

But one young entrepreneur saw

an opportunity in its fading

grandeur and would grant it new life.

You walk into this place and you
can't help

but fall in love with it.

The lobby is spectacular,

I got married in the lobby.

In 1975, Jerry Mickelson, the current
owner and music promotor

was searching for a theatre that
could host top bands

and rock concerts without

the restrictions he encountered in
the centre of Chicago.

Originally we started downtown at
some beautiful old theatres but

the old theatres became
very restrictive

with who they would let in
to play at their venues.

Chicago had a lot of rules.

The stagehands had to belong to the
union,

the police were keeping
an eye on illicit activity,

there were noise ordinances.

When Bob Marley came into
a downtown theatre

the people that owned the theatre
went nuts

because as soon as he walked in
they're smoking Ganja.

We got hassled all day long,
he got hassled.

But here in Uptown it was
a little bit more free,

maybe a little bit more like
the Wild West.

You could get away with a lot more
here.

Free from all the rules
and restrictions,

the Uptown was a perfect fit
for famous musicians

and raucous concerts

so Jerry leased this grand old lady
from its owners.

On October 31st 1975 we presented
our first concert here

with Fee Waybill and the Tubes.

And it was perfect for a rock and
roll band.

You would have the Green Room
in back.

You would have space for the band
and the various hangers on.

The bands certainly wanted
to play here,

because there weren't restrictions

that stopped them from really
putting on their very best show,

and the fans loved coming here just
to take in the beauty of the theatre

but, also, the fact that they were
really so close to the stage,

no matter where you are.

The sight lines, you know,

sitting anywhere in this theatre is
really spectacular,

the acoustics are perfect.

So the Uptown Theatre became one of
the go

to destinations for the top bands of
the day.

There's Grateful Dead stickers on
the back of seats,

there's an ode to Bruce Springsteen

that's written on the women's
bathroom stall.

Seeing Springsteen was always
great here,

the Grateful Dead, Bob Marley, Frank
Zapper.

Genesis here was amazing,
Electric Light Orchestra,

all the shows that played here were
top notch performers on their

way up.

But the owners weren't living up
to their end of the bargain.

They extracted every penny that
they could

but they never reinvested it back
into the theatre

and for a place like Uptown that
really was its death sentence.

December 19th 1981 had to buy
the oil to heat

the theatre cos
the owners couldn't afford to do it

and the bathrooms were barely
functioning on the day of

the show and they decided to close.

The theatre changed hands again

and the next owner really was just
buying it as

a salvage opportunity.

They stripped out the plumbing
and the fixtures,

they sold everything off that
they could.

In the mid-1990s,

David and a friend got involved in
trying to save

the building from its slum
lord owners.

Unfortunately they failed and
neglected to heat the building.

Where all these drain lines
transition through the roof,

they froze, they burst,

consequently we had all that water
cascading through the building.

It was kind of heartbreaking
to see the condition

the building was in,

this lobby was full of nothing
but junk.

While David managed to keep
the building alive,

an old face eventually returned
with a plan

to restore it to its former glory.

I couldn't afford to buy it in 1981
or '82 and just waited till

the opportunity came that I could
acquire it

and it wasn't until 2008 that
I finally put all

the pieces together to, er, make
this work and immediately started

to put money into it to preserve it.

The three original chandeliers
were salvaged

and are being kept in storage.

By court order they'll be
refitted when

the theatre's restoration work is
85% complete.

With plans to bring rock bands back
to its stage,

David is waiting

with bated breath for opening night.

I've been here since 1996 trying
to save this building

and working on keeping it alive
and maintaining it.

Hopefully I'm in the front row and
I'm gonna rent a tuxedo

and I'm gonna pop a bottle of
champagne and

hopefully we're gonna get there in
my lifetime.

In the Malaysian state of Perak sits

a majestic ruin plagued by the ghosts
of its past.

This region is hot and it's humid
and it's covered in rainforest

so when you see this grand building
sitting in the middle of it all,

it's a surprise.

At first glance it feels like the
kind of castle you might expect

to see in the Scottish Highlands so
what's it doing here in Malaysia?

It's a strange blend of
architecture,

you have Scottish and Moorish
and Italian influences.

Some areas seem to be in pretty good
condition

especially from the outside

but then there are other parts that
look like they've been

completely destroyed.

One thing we can say for certain is
this doesn't look like a stronghold

built for defence.

The inside, although bare, feels
like it could have been

someone's home.

This site holds a tale of one man's
ambition

which rode a wave of colonial
expansion.

He arrived with a humble dream which
could only be realised

because of the might of
the British Empire.

It's a story that changed
the course of history

and it begins with a theft.

In the jungles of Malaysia,

legend has it that this place
is haunted.

Local resident, Hakim, is a believer.

The ghost stories that surround this
building were born

of its turbulent past.

There's a good reason this grand
residence looks like it could be

a Scottish castle and that's because
Scotland is where its story begins

with a man named William Smith.

William Kelly Smith was born in 1870
to relative poverty.

At the age of 20 he decided to seek
his fortune on the other side of the

world in the British colony of
Malaya, today known as Malaysia.

This was an era when Europe was
claiming overseas properties for

for their own and they did it with

little regard to the native people.

By the time William Smith arrived
in the colony

it was well established

and ripe for exploitation.

Smith embarked on survey work as
a civil engineer for

a massive road-building programme.

With little competition he quickly
earned enough money

to buy a plot of land.

And Smith purchased 1,000 acres
of land where the house sits today

but he didn't yet have the funds
to build it,

all he had, for years, was a small
wooden bungalow.

He tried his luck at a few other
businesses which all failed

but with his next venture,
marriage, he'd hit the jackpot.

In 1903 he met 25-year-old Agnes,

a wealthy heiress to
a Liverpool cotton merchant family.

After a whirlwind romance
they married

and Smith came into £60,000
of Agnes inheritance money.

This was a vast fortune, the
equivalent to around

£6 million today.

Agnes hates the wooden bungalow

so William started work on
a brick house.

It was complete by 1910 and was the
beginning of what would become

Kelly's Castle.

Smith continued to frivolously invest
his wife's inheritance into his many

failing businesses,
among them a coffee plantation,

a sawmill and a dredging company

but with one venture he would strike
it lucky.

Smith had previously started
a rubber plantation

and now with the extra funds he
could expand it

and soon he had the largest in
the Batu Gajah area.

What's fascinating about rubber

and you might not think
there's much,

is how rubber trees got
to Malaya in the first place.

It's a story that began with a theft.

Rubber trees are native to
the Amazon

and they didn't grow anywhere else.

Brazil for many years had
a complete world monopoly.

The British weren't happy about this
and they started to try

and smuggle seeds out of the
country

but every attempt failed as
the seeds turned rancid

before they got back to England.

But, in 1876, a man named Henry
Wickam successfully transported

70,000 seeds back to London using
banana skins.

Once there, the botanist
successfully germinated the seeds

which were then sent out to the
colonies that had the right climate

for them to thrive.

Malaya was by far
the most productive.

This coupled with the huge demand
from

the US automobile industry in
the 1900s created

a massive boom in the rubber trade.

Rubber was suddenly like gold

and money from Smith's plantation
was pouring in,

he began expanding his brick
house into

the home he'd always dreamed of.

Work started in 1915 and William was
desperate to make a statement

to show that he was part of
the colonial elite in Malaya

and, in the Victorian era, to do
that you needed a castle estate

and William wanted his to be
the biggest.

Kelly's Castle was designed
to incorporate Scottish,

Moorish and Indian
architectural elements,

features which you can still
see today.

Ornate garages were packed full of
the latest motorcars,

elaborate dining rooms
welcomed guests

and hosted lavish dinner parties,

all maintained by
an army of servants.

The plan included 14 rooms, an
indoor tennis court,

a rooftop courtyard, a cellar,
stables and a six-storey tower

that would house Malaya's
first elevator.

More than 70 craftsmen from
India were bought over

to work on the castle.

But construction was brought to
a halt during World War One

and just as the conflict ended in
1918 tragedy struck.

In November a Spanish flu epidemic
passed through Malaya

killing 35,000 people,

many of them William's
Indian workers.

Construction eventually got
underway again

but Smith wouldn't live
to see his castle completed.

He went to Europe
to visit his wife Agnes

and their son Antony who was
attending boarding school there.

As part of the trip, William went to
Lisbon with the intention of

picking up his new elevator, but,
while he was there, he caught

pneumonia and died at the age of 56.

Agnes was said to be so heartbroken
that she never returned to Malaya,

she sold the estate and Kelly's
Castle was never completed

and it didn't take long for
the jungle to take hold once again.

In 2000 the Malaysian
Government restored

the dilapidated old estate with

the hopes that it would draw in
tourists and it does.

But one of it's main draws appears
to be

the many ghost stories that
surround this place.

Many visitors claim to feel
a strange presence here.

Some say it's the Indian workers
that died

because of the Spanish flu.

Others think it's the restless
spirit of William Kelly Smith

prowling the floors of his
unfinished mansion.

Perhaps he just doesn't want
strangers

walking around in his home.

On the waters of San Francisco Bay is

a facility that from great tragedy
became the toast of a nation.

So we're on this peninsula jutting
out into the bay

with rolling, tree-covered hills,
sloping down to the water.

You see these sprawling remains

but it's hard to get

a sense of what their purpose might
have been.

And there's this vast red brick
building with towers

and crenellations,
it's like a castle.

This doesn't feel like somewhere
that was actually used

for fortifications.

The sheer enormity of the site
suggests that whatever happened

took place on a super-sized scale.

There are these vast rooms with
rows

and rows of columns stretching out
into the distance.

Other areas are clearly being used
for storage,

there's old cars and furniture
and boxes on shelves.

Just when you think that this was
a civilian facility,

you start to see military rations
and stretchers.

This was the brainchild of
a man who wanted

to revolutionise an industry at

a time when San Francisco was
reduced to smoking rubble.

It was a massive investment,
a technical feat really.

But all of his efforts would be
undone by

a radical national reform.

Overnight he goes from entrepreneur
to criminal.

Frances Dinkelspiel is an author

and journalist who has written
extensively about

the industry that made all
this possible.

I first came to this place
around 2010,

I was working on a story for the New
York Times.

There was a controversy about
the space

and how it would be used

and I was absolutely flabbergasted
when I arrived.

It looked like an old mediaeval
castle with turrets and towers.

This majestic structure has less to
do with royalty

and more to do with a national
indulgence.

In the 1890s the Californian wine
industry was a mess.

Prices had been driven so low that

wine makers and growers

were barely breaking even.

People, sort of, thought of
Californian wines as cheap,

not that reliable, kind of, tasted
funky at times.

One man began a movement to transform
California's dwindling wine industry

and its reputation.

It was led by a rather unlikely
figure,

an accountant from England,

who didn't seem to know anything

about wine.

His name was Percy Morgan.

What he lacked in wine knowledge,

he made up for in business smarts.

At the time San Francisco was
the beating heart of

the industry due to its cool climate.

Grapes from across the state were
crushed and sent to wine houses

in the city where they would be
stored in large barrels to age...

..and these facilities were all in
fierce competition.

Percy Morgan came up with
an idea to create sort of

a mega corporation

and so in 1894 he brought together
seven wine houses in San Francisco

and they created
the California Wine Association.

Also known as the CWA, they now had
almost total control

of the state's industry...

..but an epic disaster threatened
to derail their progress.

The 18th of April 1906, a massive 7.9
magnitude earthquake

hit San Francisco.

While the quake lasted less than
a minute,

it ignited several fires across
the city which burned for three days.

More than 3,000 people died
and 80% of the city is destroyed.

Among the rubble were

a number of vital buildings owned by
the California Wine Association.

Out of nearly 30,

only three of the city's commercial
wine establishments survive.

Around ten million gallons
of their wine was said

to have been destroyed in

the earthquake and
the fires that followed.

It looks as if the state's wine
industry has been destroyed

beyond all repair but out of the
ashes of this tragedy,

Percy Morgan sees another
opportunity.

Percy Morgan said, "I'm not
rebuilding all these plants.

"I want to create one master
wine-making facility."

He believed that if the CWA could
rebuild in one big complex

it would be more efficient and they
could dominate the industry.

And so the CWA purchased 46 acres at
Point Molarte,

across the bay in San Francisco,

to construct Winehaven.

Built in 1907, one year after the
quake,

Winehaven was operating as a one-stop
shop for wine production.

So in harvest season, in September
and October,

tonnes and tonnes of grapes would be
brought to Winehaven,

they'd come from river boats down
from Napa,

they'd come from rail lines from
the San Joaquin Valley

and then they'd be loaded up on the
internal rail system at Winehaven

and brought here to the main
wine-making facility.

Once crushed, they'd be put into
barrels to ferment

in the central building.

You would see enormous barrels
lining the walls,

there were so many redwood casks
that people said

there were four miles of passageways
going between those redwood casks.

It could store ten million gallons
of wine.

You can't help but be impressed at
this building.

It cost about $6 million to
construct.

It's full of steel and concrete.

This was a building that was
constructed to last a long time.

By 1908 Winehaven is fully
operational

and that year alone they produced
675,000 gallons of wine.

It was the largest winery in the
world.

The scale was just tremendous.

Its enormous size was complimented
by its location,

strategically chosen
for maximum impact.

Morgan had been really smart in
where he chose to build Winehaven.

When the Panama Canal opened, in
1914,

the shipping lanes led right past
Winehaven

and, suddenly, almost the entire
world is within reach of the CWA.

Winehaven was really a city state.

Not only were, you know, grapes
brought here, crushed here,

stored here,

Winehaven made its own casks

importing wood from Louisiana, for
example.

It had its own bottling plant.

It had every sort of thing that was
needed.

A workforce of skilled labourers
from Italy, and beyond,

grew to 400 people during the
harvest.

The company ensured everything
was provided for staff

including housing, a post office and
a school.

But there was a wave of change
coming,

one that would transform
the United States

and threaten Winehaven's
very existence.

At the stroke of midnight on
the 17th of January 1920,

the country went dry when

prohibition was enforced across
the nation.

This is the death knell for
Winehaven.

The workers at Winehaven held a last
lunch,

probably here, on the loading dock.

They had been here for, for more
than a decade,

producing some of the greatest wine
in the world

and, all of a sudden, in the United
States, wine was mostly prohibited.

That was the end of production of
wine in Winehaven.

Percy Morgan, the man who did
everything to make

the California Wine Association
successful,

was inconsolable.

I can only imagine how devastating
this was for Percy Morgan.

Here he was, an upstanding citizen,

one of the most respected business
people in California

and, all of a sudden, a law declares
that he was morally corrupt.

On the morning of April 16th 1920,
still in his pyjamas,

Morgan walked into the library of
his home

and shot himself.

After Winehaven was shut down,

its warehouses were still full
of wine that they hadn't been able

to sell.

And so stories are that they dumped

a lot of this wine right here into
the bay

and that days afterwards it was
really easy to catch fish

who were so drunken from the wine
that they just, sort of, laid there.

The California Wine Association
sells off its assets

to avoid bankruptcy

and this giant facility
is mothballed.

Despite prohibition ending in 1933
it was only when

the nation was at war that

the building was utilised once more.

After the shock Japanese attack at
Pearl Harbour,

the United States was drawn into
World War Two

and Winehaven was given a new lease
on life.

The US Navy bought the property

and they turned it into

a fuel storage facility for
the Pacific fleet.

When the war ended, the Navy
continued to operate the site,

adapting the cellars to face
a new national threat at

the height of the Cold War.

In the bowels of this property,

the Navy set up a bomb shelter,

the remnants of which you can still
see today.

They have drinking water, they have
cots, they have commodes,

they have all the things you might
need if you had

to hide out from radiation for
an extended period of time.

Finally in 1995 the site was
decommissioned.

After the Navy withdrew from
Winehaven

it became the property of
the city of Richmond.

There have been various proposals
of things to do with the site.

Er, at one point, there was
an idea of turning it into

a casino complex but nothing ever
really panned out.

And now the question remains, will
Winehaven ever return to its roots?

In the last five to ten years there
was a wine maker

who was making wine at Winehaven,
which was really exciting,

but nowadays it's mostly used as
a storage facility.

But if you look closely,

you can see that some

of these massive warehouses are

being used to store wine once again.

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