Sliding bookcase

A sliding bookcase is a bookcase that is designed to slide, and is typically used to hide the presence of a secret room or space. Sliding bookcases were used in the United States during prohibition to hide rooms or spaces containing liquor. They have also been used to conceal entrances to bars and marijuana growing operations. People have hidden in secret rooms concealed by sliding bookcases to escape detection during police raids.Safe rooms, also known as panic rooms, may be concealed by sliding bookcases. Sliding bookcases may be designed to slide and to swing open using hinges. Several places in the world have sliding bookcases, and sliding bookcases have been portrayed in many fictional works.

Sliding bookcases have been installed by homeowners and builders. Sliding bookcases have been used to conceal rooms where marijuana growing operations have occurred. In Bradford Leigh, a hamlet in Wiltshire, England, police discovered a large hidden room with 600 cannabis plants that was concealed by a hinged bookcase.

During World War II at the Anne Frank House, Anne Frank hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the 17th-century canal house, known as the Secret Annex (Dutch: Achterhuis). The rooms were concealed by a movable, sliding bookcase. Anne Frank did not survive the war, but in 1947 her wartime diary was published.

The Speakeasy was a theater and club experience in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco that occurred in January-March 2013 that included the feature of a sliding bookcase that led to "Club 23", a bar and casino parlor. Club 23 was opened after the show, and only "select few patrons" were allowed entrance. Additional entrances included two fake walls.

Bourbon & Branch is a speakeasy-themed bar in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood that has a hinged bookcase that leads to their library. A password is required to gain entry to the bar, and a separate one is required to gain entry to the library.

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