DC Union Station Lower Level Food Court Mystery Area

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Can someone explain what/where/how to get to the lower level circled in red at the Food Court level?

I am only there once a year mostly and did not walk around the food court that much last visit last summer. But I did take some time to walk around all three levels, or so I thought. But I don't remember anything behind the food court. Did I miss a secret passage? Is there an outside entrance to the part that does not connect elsewhere to the main part of Union Station. Can someone give me the password?

Taking the Crescent in mid-June to visit the Zoo and then a short trip to Baltimore for a day for baseball. If I have to I will leave my wife in the Metro Lounge and explore (after I can some bread at the Potbelly to leave a trail.)

I pulled this off the map at https://www.unionstationdc.com/directory/

 

[joelkfla]

I didn't know this existed either, but the stairs and elevator appear to match up with ones at the extreme east end of the main floor (diagrammed below):


I think it may be separated from the food court by the run-thru tracks.

Seems like an odd place to put a Starbucks & Potbelly. Perhaps it can be accessed directly from the VRE platform.

 

[McLeansvilleAppFan]

Well at least it is not just me that was unaware of this area.

I hope this does not become like The Third Level by Jack Finney. https://archive.org/details/thirdlevel00finn/page/n15/mode/2up

 

[JamesWhitcombRiley]

It's all one space. The empty area is the stairway atrium. The large brownish grayish space to the left of the empty space is Walgreens.

Like most stations, the floor plans available are quite bad. The area at the top of the diagram has super interesting portals with gate numbers, unused, except as space behind the counters of fast food places. The portals would have run under the main stub-end platforms. Transverse to them is or was a service corridor, where there's a tiny elevator marked near the top of the diagram. That whole area is off-limits. The service corridor ran beyond the station westward under the street to the post office (or something).