Every day, countless people walk along the sidewalk in front of the Wisconsin Historical Society on the UW-Madison campus. Most are probably completely unaware of the treasures that lie just below their feet.
More than 15,000 film reels from the Golden Age of Hollywood, stored in identical flat, gray metal canisters, are stacked in row upon row of non-descript shelving in the vast temperature- and humidity-controlled vault underneath the sidewalk.