The River Seoul Kept Secret For Half a Century

At the heart of Seoul lies a river that spent half a century entombed. The Cheonggyecheon once ran openly through the city's core, but in the years following the war it grew polluted and hemmed in by shanties, so the authorities paved over it. Concrete sealed the water away, and by the nineteen seventies an elevated highway thundered above that concrete. The river persisted only as a rumour beneath the traffic.

Then, in two thousand and three, Seoul attempted something that looked almost perverse: it began dismantling the highway to dig the river back out. Engineers tore up the roadway, restored nearly six kilometres of the stream, and lined its banks with walkways, stepping stones and bridges. Sceptics accused the city of sacrificing useful infrastructure for decoration. The project proceeded regardless, and the stream was unveiled again in two thousand and five.

Even the optimists were unprepared for what followed. Fish, birds and insects returned to water that had not glimpsed daylight in fifty years. Summer temperatures along the stream registered several degrees cooler than on the roads running parallel to it, a natural air conditioner threaded through the densest part of the city. Millions now walk its banks each year, many of them too young to grasp that their favourite corner of Seoul was once the underside of a motorway.