road to nowhere

I realize that my posts of late have been somewhat on the dark side of professed thought. With winter waning, I can feel my weather induced pessimism lifting. The melting snow has surfaced a lost roll of film from some previous adventures.

Thom, Josh, and I took a two hour drive down state to explore an abandoned air force base that was rumored to exist. I was expecting barracks, perhaps some hangers or machine rooms. What we found was a place that seemed walked away from. It was as if they shut the doors on a Friday and skipped town in a permanent way. There were more buildings than we could hope to get through unnoticed in one day. We chose the two that would be most intriguing.

The first was a theatre. The place was never gutted and there was still seating for over 300, easy. Over time the roof had given way to rain and storm. The structure was still holding, the materials were saturated and floor bound. The seats were faded and thread bare. The aisles were carpeted with piles of ceiling tiles that gave underfoot like milk soaked graham crackers. The scent of rust and rain poured in from outside. The building was dissolving in the wet season of mid November in Illinois. I walked around the remains of the stage and climbed up to where the pin rail was operated. The whole operation was rusted through. Nature was attempting to absorb the theatre back into its domain. All that remained in the booth were the platforms where the projectors once stood. The light streamed in through the shutters hanging off the windows. The roof opened up and let in the sun and the trees. Being inside the theatre was more like being outside.

We made our way out across the quad to the dorms. At this point, unbeknownst to us, we were being tailed by the local police. The dorms were a strange place. In four floors, there were identical hallways. Off the hallways branched identically shaped rooms. Each of the rooms was empty, save for an occasional broken chair. But each room had a telephone on the floor that was disconnected from the wall. Each phone was in a different spot in every room. The ceiling tiles had come free from above and fallen like soggy tetris pieces on the floor. They had thought painting over tile was a good idea at the time, and now the tile was shaking off the paint like bad case of dandruff. Thom and Josh had gone up to the third floor, I was still exploring the second. After taking a few pictures of the rooms I walked passed the stairwell that led upstairs. I saw a face I'd never seen before, he was in a black uniform and he was carrying a gun. Two thoughts ran through my head: 1. If I run, they'll chase me, 2. That would be interesting, but serve no practical purpose as I have no drugs or weapons on me. So I went upstairs where they had already nabbed Thom and Josh. These small town cops couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that we drove two hours from Chicago to visit this place. "Aren't there better things to do in the city?" "You're probably going to get yourselves sick from all the mold and asbestos in this place." But come on guys, look at the pictures I got. Walking where you're not supposed to provides a rare thrill that most people just don't understand.

Check out more photos from that trip on my webpage in the urban gallery

introduction to urban exploration

I've recently gotten into the delightful habit of being a somewhat law breaking citizen and discovering the other side to this city.

tres.pass
verb
1:the criminal act of going into someone else's land or property without the owner/lessee's permission.

You might ask yourself what could one possibly be looking for when entering an abandoned building? Most would associate the search for trouble or possibly the off chance of ghosts. What really drives people to become urban explorers? Why set foot in a long forgotten dreary factory or derelict church? The adventure sought could be quite reminiscent of expeditions
of old. Finding your way into a boarded up grade school evokes the thrill of looking for Livingston in the jungle and scaling the ruins of some lost civilization. It is due to the fact that the places we go are forgotten by all that surround them that makes the act exciting. Discovering a chair that has not been sat upon for forty years is the modern equivalent of the Mayan ruins. Finding a way onto the roof of that twenty story building with the greatest view of Lake Michigan at dawn is an urban Mount Everest.

It is not just the taboo excitement that accompanies exploring a place where the public is not allowed; the search for the past is also prevalent in the mind of the urban explorer. The discovery and appreciation of older architecture in a day of glass box buildings and rows of matching gentrified condos is also taken into account. It is in the details of the past that we find our origin.

When the owners of any property see fit to let it go wayside, the doors open for the urban explorer. (In most cases vandals get there first and forcibly open the door for others.) The explorer breaks no glass, busts no lock, and tags no wall. This set of ethics is what separates us from the graffiti artist or common vandal. Most are photographers, others are archiphiles looking for a new sight. The natural decay of the building is what interests the explorer most. It is unfortunate that some places of desolate beauty are defiled by a volatile amateur with a can of weak, suburban bought spray paint.