Tag Archives: Urbex

things i hate about summer
1. heat
2. sun
3. humidity
4. too large of people wearing too small clothes

things i am not looking forward to this summer
1. queuing in spiral lines in 90 degree hot sun
2. fishnet tan lines (tho that may actually be cool)
3. all my summer clothes that suck, i think i grew since last summer if that is at all possible, everything is too short now

things i miss about the old townhouse
1. air conditioning
2. dishwasher
3. air conditioning
4. no upstairs neighbors

but i like my new place – even if i still haven’t unpacked the office or hung any of my posters up. i think my 70s wallpaper adds to the kitchyness of most of my decorations hahaha.

and speaking of kitch… more exploring today. went out with joe, chris, trevor and missy to hens and kellys in hamburg. they are demolishing it to build a walmart. it’s been closed for ages. the most interesting thing about it, when we walked in there was fog inside. everything is soaking wet, very humid, and it was hot outside so. fog. you just don’t see department stores like that anymore, with a section for “bras and girdles” and “mens furnishings”….it kept making me think of the britcom “are you being served?” (which i still love and is better than any crap sitcom on tv now). there were 2 chandeliers still inside, one fallen from the ceiling, which made for interesting pics in the fog. but being a department store, very few windows, and none upstairs, which meant using evil flash. so i’ve only got a few “artistic” pictures, the rest simply document it, for it’ll soon be gone.

on the way home stopped by the Ho-oats demolition by my wonderful employers. this isn’t something i was crying about along with the rest of the buffalo preservationists, because really, we can sacrifice a grain silo or 2 (i’d pick and choose my battles if decisions of this kind were up to me, and this just wouldn’t be one of them)….but seeing the demo in progress was a bit sad. interesting how it was being done though. took some pics and video, probably crap video but whatever. also went by meyer malting to see the demo progress there…the front building is half gone. no one was around, being a holiday today and all, but i was by myself at this point, and i couldn’t remember the layout inside enough to remember if i could still get other places inside with half of the front gone. oh well. i’ll have to be satisfied with the few pics i got the only time i was there. (not necessarily a building i’d normally cry about being demo-ed either, but i was only in once, and not for very long…and now that i have active exploring friends again, i had been waiting to go back.)

i’d chain myself to cargill though if there was a demo ordered for that silo.

the clintons are going to be in buffalo on wednesday. i don’t know anything about the state’s democratic convention, but i think it would be interesting to go. and i’d love to meet bill. or hillary. and plead my cause 🙂 i just want to go, gotta try to find out information about it, and postpone my possible trip up to toronto wednesday.

somewhat interestingly…maybe just to me…the man who played the principal in The Breakfast Club died…and what is interesting about it, is that he died from mesothelioma….ha. that’s what i’m going to die from. i wonder how he got exposed to asbestos. i still plan on suing SUNY geneseo when the time comes 🙂

i’ve been identity thefted. someone is using my bank account to buy gasoline in west palm beach florida. spent 275$ so far. and i wondered why my account was so low. gah. stressful. i don’t know how they got my account number, as none of my cards have been stolen, and i don’t use that account number to buy things on the internet, i only use my credit card. so if they were to steal my info from internet purchases they’d be charging them, not using debit…i guess i gotta watch it now, see if anything else weird gets billed to me.

spur of the moment urbex today. chris IMed that he would be checking out the dunlop office building with his friend alex. so i went out with them around 4. cased the place a few times, not knowing where to park. once that was settled we found no way in, except this one window we kept going back to. but there was no way i’d be able to get up to it, i couldn’t even reach the ledge. we convinced chris to drop the 10 feet into the building and find something for alex and i to use to get up. and voila he produces a ladder LOL. so that was helpful. the building is rather unremarkable, but it was a nice change of pace. 3 floors of empty and retarded graffiti, most all dealing with smoking weed. it would have been a fine office building had it been kept up. now it would need alot of work and cleaning, and windows. the ladder was helpful in getting out of the building as well, since again, couldn’t reach the ledge. stopped at wendy’s for a quick snack, and home again. i was gonna clean today. maybe i should do that haha.

thursday brought exploring with ian. started early and headed to spaulding fibre. spaulding is a HUGE complex that made…fibre? tennis balls? i dunno really. haha. they made paper for sure, but there was alot of stuff there that didn’t seem needed for making paper. including an acid room, and tons and tons of wooden vats of whatever. lots of machinery. the boiler room was most impressive, much like the flintkote machine room. veerrry pretty. saw the biggest bird ever in one of the buildings, huuuge wing span. and a squirrel. and a groundhog. and a mummified cat. we spent about 4 hours there before getting lunch at royal and heading down to the terminal for the board meeting. drove by transfig to see the status, and ian wandered in the terminal during the meeting. after, went to REA real quick, then cased the psych center. i didn’t get followed by security this time haha. back to my house we hung out and i showed him the horror that was the discovery channel urban exploration show on buffalo. hung out some more, crashed, and he left not too long ago. i took a total of 1 film picture LOL, but pretty much filled my 512 card.

went out exploring today with dagr/ian. i met him with dan and monkey boy josh last year when i took them to the terminal. ian’s from welland so it’s not too far. he called from a hotel in rochester, so i suggested jackson sanitarium in dansville and headed out to meet him down there. i don’t know anything out in rochester really, and there was no time for research. anyway spent a few hours in the building, and looked around the basement for the first time in 4 trips – i remembered my flashlight this time haha. found some really great pamphlets from when the place was owned by mcfadden and marketed as an expensive resort/spa. 2$ enemas. 3$ colonic flushing (what is the difference?). found a bill for over 1400$!! from 1958!! that was tons back then. i’ll be scanning those once they dry out and flatten out.

once we finished there, ian had found another place in town while he drove around waiting for me, so we went out there. i was a bit iffy about a blue truck that showed up and sat there, so i didn’t go in, but he went in for a quick look around. will have to check it out if i’m down that way in the future. it’s not exciting enough to warrant a special trip. we decided to go back to buffalo, so he followed me home and i took him to cargill – he hadn’t been to any of the grain elevators before. the sun was setting which always makes cargill look extra pretty, so it was good timing on our part. lots of turkeys hanging about. like…birds, not idiots. and deer in the river. spent some time there, and i took him to the marine star to scope out the unfortunately new graffiti on the boat. makes me mad that someone got on the boat when i still can’t, and that they went and ruined things with spray paint. oh well.

since none of these locations were new to me i spent most of my time taking stupid self portraits. we’ll see how lame they come out haha…i tried to crawl into a small safe for one of them, real low light, we’ll see if it turns out at all. i hope so, cuz i ended up with dust and plaster down my pants lol.

time to check out some of the digi pics i took…oh, one note. i hadn’t been there since the trip with lei, james and brian, so i made sure to stop by the room where james had put together a small art installation to see if any was left…

2.5 rolls of film to get developed later…

stomach hurts, called in again, tho i’m feeling guilty cuz i might have been ok enough to work. oh well.

i remembered the guided missile case at carbosil so i decided to look up the missile it once contained, the AIM-54. and wow. pictures. pics make it look way bigger than the case, but it’s hard to tell from my pics. apparently it’s 13 ft long with a 15 inch diameter. that seems right, but the wingspan is 3 feet, which would not fit in the case. one source says they cost about a million dollars each to make, others have a unit cost of 477k. the weapon is apparently retired.

after this websearch i’m definitely on the FBI subversive list.

for those not interested in clicking the links, just note this

The AIM-54 Phoenix was retired from USN service on 30 September 2004. F-14 Tomcats will be retired on September 22nd, 2006. Both F-14 Tomcat and AIM-54 Phoenix missile continue in service of the Iranian Air Force.

now again, why on earth is the case for this weapon in carbosil?

now to research the base, NF-17DC….it was once proposed (1981) to turn the site into a medium security correctional facility…interesting. according to a 2001 document, property was still owned by the air force, and was being looked at by the department of housing and urban development as “property suitable as facilities to assist the homeless”. i’m curious as to if the main large “burned” building is the bomb proof missile master building that is spoken of in some of these reports. (well this overhead shot certainly looks like it could be) *edit* it indeed is the missile master building. now i REALLY want to get inside it

http://www.lockport-ny.com/Pictures/n4.htm
http://www.radomes.org/museum/documents/LockportAFSNY.html

urbex today with chris, rob, and 2 of rob’s friends who i forget their names cuz i’m a jerk like that. met them at the terminal, and while i was waiting this woman pulled up with about a 5 year old kid. they were looking around, and i offered to show them inside and the girl just about died haha. she was so excited. i wish i still got that excited seeing that place. haha. anyway, went down and met chris at silver creek high school. hurt my shoulder getting in, but i think i actually fixed it. it bent in the opposite direction that i use it to deal. so i think i’ve kinda stretched it the other way and it feels better now haha. i was hoping for alot of snow, but since this winter has totally sucked, i had to settle for just a dusting on the auditorium chairs. it would be really beautiful with tons of snow. i was hoping for the flooded basement to be frozen, but when i tested the ice out it broke. boo. anyway. had a good time with them. hopefully i’ll be able to go out with them again (they live in PA and OH so…). maybe if there is a big cold snap and snow i’ll go back out there.

next week is bethlehem steel. woo!

fav urbex locations
1. cargil veranda
2. concrete central “cord room”
3. flintkote machine room
4. silver creek green room
5. bct glass walkway

went exploring with chris today. the intended target was toronto hydro in the falls canada. i didn’t realize it was right on the parkway and practically in the park. so that meant lots of traffic and people. but it didn’t much matter, it’s badly fenced, but beyond the fence no noticable entry. beautiful building though. gonna see about getting permission to go in.

drove around trying to find this other place i accidentally drove by once. didn’t find it so headed back to the states. ended up going to carbosil again. someone/thing knocked the school bus completely over on its side!!!!! but that wasnt the most exciting thing about carbosil this time… there was a white case, opened up…sitting there. and on the side it was labled GUIDED MISSILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of course, no missile, i looked all over. but why on earth was there a carrying case for a missile in carbosil? didn’t notice it last time, but i don’t think it was new. god if it was?!?!?!

came back to the house and showed him some stuff. looked at the book he had done, and i’m gonna get one of my own i think. mypublisher.com nice stuff.

work tonight at 10. blah blah blah blaaah. i’ll be sleeping all day tomorrow. up too early today.