Urban Exploration

[tivoli_mike]

Curious if anyone else has experiences they like to share. As a kid growing up in Frankfurt, there was a fair share of old subway stations, abandoned houses, and factories to run around in. One neat place by Alt Ginnheim, was an old estate from the 1800s ( has been razed since I was there ) with a great old mansion that was mostly burnt out ( although a squatter family did live there ) the surrounding grounds were pretty fun to wander around, with its family graveyard, algae covered swimming pools , and overgrown topriary.

 

 

 

site for modern ruins

[b-rock]

There's a huge network of tunnels connecting the entire campus of the school I went to on the east coast, probably some 10+ miles of tunnels and odd storage rooms. It was almost entirely closed off somewhere back in the 50s but with some crude homemade lockpicking tools (and in one instance, a crowbar) access could be had. The neat part was the history of all the crap that went down in there during the sixties, crazy graffiti, sculptures, etc in some of the weirdest places. All left over from when LSD was not yet illegal and when the school had one of the top chemistry programs in the country. Good times.

[Ireneo_Funes]

The zine "Infiltration" makes for some interesting reading on this subject.

 

I haven't done any urban exploration beyond what we all probably did as kids in abandoned buildings, etc., but some acquaintances of mine spend a lot of their free time with it. Their stories of wading through sewage, running from the cops, and getting poisoned by methane gas kinda turn me off, though.

[Dru]

Steam tunnels and "The Vortex"

 

Guy

[thelawgoddess]

that sounded cool. until i looked at the website. now it sounds creepy!

[rbw1966]

The backstage area in the Bagdad Theatre has some interesting exploration opportunities. Or at least did.

[Dru]

You can do rural exploration too. The aqueduct tunnel at Smith is a good place to get in touch with your inner Gollum.

[jordop]

It's a big movement in Europe, where cities have been built upon themselves for centuries:

http://www.infiltration.org/catacomb.htm

[Mr._Natural]

I have heard about tunnels under downtown bellingham quite a bit. Ft. Casey is also a good time if you leave the flashlights at home. i took the underground seattle tour when i was eight. i like dark places.

[Mal_Con]

Steam Tunnels at UW!

[Camilo]

You can do rural exploration too. The aqueduct tunnel at Smith is a good place to get in touch with your inner Gollum.

I was checking that out the other day. How long is it? Do you think it's innertube-able? That would be a damn scary ride.

[Dru]

You can run through it in the fall when it's dry. It might have scum and stagnant water up to knee deep in the low part in the middle. Its about a mile long (?) and comes out on the other side of the Monument.

[thelawgoddess]

Steam Tunnels at UW!

huh?

[Ireneo_Funes]

You can run through it in the fall when it's dry. It might have scum and stagnant water up to knee deep in the low part in the middle. Its about a mile long (?) and comes out on the other side of the Monument.

 

You've done this?

[Camilo]

How tall is the tunnel? I wanna tube it!

[Thinker]

Watch out for these guys if you explore the tunnels under Tokyo.

 

[Dru]

You can run through it in the fall when it's dry. It might have scum and stagnant water up to knee deep in the low part in the middle. Its about a mile long (?) and comes out on the other side of the Monument.

 

You've done this?

 

I believe it might be illegal/trespassing so I'm going to state that all internet beta is suspect and should be considered second hand and unreliable

[glacier]

Ha! They even have a FORUM we can crash!

[MatthewS]

Ah...urban exploration...one of the lone redeeming aspects of my childhood home, Detroit. Just watch out for the crazy homeless that roam these buildings.

 

http://detroityes.com/home.htm

[Dru]

"Information about Canada, Toronto, Ontario and many other countries" It really is the center of the universe!

[bunglehead]

Ah...urban exploration...one of the lone redeeming aspects of my childhood home, Detroit. Just watch out for the crazy homeless that roam these buildings.

 

http://detroityes.com/home.htm[/url]

 

DAMN! Somebody beat me to it! That's my hometown too!

The Synagogue I went to as a kid is in there.

[bunglehead]

Man, the more I look at that site, the more depressing it is. I know a decent number of those ruins. So many of those places I've been to, now just ruins. Grim.

[Mal_Con]

Steam Tunnels at UW!

huh?

Yeah they goo to every building and can be accessed (or used to be) by rapping down a manhole cover and schooching around some barriers. They are the big grates you see around campus. We used to use headlamps to avoid drawing attention. It is probably dangerous and stupid.

[Double_E]

i read an article in some magazine a while back (Vanity Fair?) about the Moscow underground... well, it was talking about various old cities and their undergronds, but it sort of focused on Moscow, which is about, what, maybe 1200 years old. sounded hardcore... the torture chambers of Ivan the Terrible and various other Czars.. and later, facilities of the KGB and their ilk... and much later, the strongholds of the modern Russian mafia. plus of course untold miles of old subway tunnels, sewers, other utility stuff, etc etc ... some used and some not. talked about the street gangs, pimps, hoodlums, (plus a few artist/anarchist types) etc who lived down there. I dunno, some of it sounded kinda hyped n' sorta speculative, but I'm sure a lot of it was true.

 

also saw some TV documentary on the Paris underground... pretty much all the same stuff, except not quite as hardcore. French hoodlums and mafia are probably just a little "kinder and gentler" than their Russian counterparts.

 

New York's underground, tho not quite as old and diverse, is nothing to sneeze at either. it was written up in a National Geo article about 5 or 10 yrs ago.

[Divot]

About the picture....damn