few pics from my weekend, and a long read if u want the story
on a whim, me and 4 friends decided to do some urban exploring, the target was a local grain tower called “concrete central”, the objective was to explore, and to possibly reach the top
of the 5 of us, 2 of us decided to make the climb to the top, the path up was the “joe cart” seen below. 100+ feet worth of old rusty steel.
Concrete Central closed its doors in the 60’s, and in 1976 2 girls fell to their death here while “playing” inside. The response by the city was to cut the steps out of the stairs to keep people from accessing the tops of the grain towers
almost all the stairs were removed from the stairwell inside the building, and the first 30 feet of stairs was removed in each of the 3 Joe carts
our path up was one of the joe carts. we climbed the exterior of the cart till we reached a level that still had the tread risers and railings from the staircase, we then switched to climbing up by using the railings and risers as our path
we shied away from using the stair treads themselves, as the clips on the risers were very well rusted , in some cases the tread risers were perforated with rust around the steps, putting weigh on those steps would have surely resulted in a 40+ foot fall down the center of these industrial dinosaurs
When we reached the low roof, we shimmied across some i beams till we were able to jump the gap and land on the roof
after a quick exploration of the 1st floor of the roof top shanty, we proceeded up the stairs in this section of the building to the very top floor, where i snapped the pics of the surrounding area. quite a view, even if its just buffalo NY
we returned to the first floor of the shanty and poked around some more. we soon realized that the concrete “floor” wasn’t really a floor at all, just a meager layer of concrete over some plywood layed across the tops of the silos. the only reinforcements were NOT a lattice of rebar, but just some steel "T’s spaced 2 feet apart. the “floor” was literally shifting beneath our feet.
While carefully walking across the floor, i watched as one of the sections shifted down about a 1/4 inch as it let out a few small snaps and pops.
great, concrete so week a mere 170 pounds is all it takes to move a 1000 pound section of concrete
we decided to use the remains of the inside staircase to make our descent. as it was slightly better shielded from the weather all these years. The decision was rather tough, as the first 4 levels down were clearly visible, and there were only 2 or 3 steps left attached anymore, everything else having been torched out long ago.
we slowly started to work our way down, holding the railings and walking down the tread risers on the sides. $ levels down we reach a problem … theres only ONE floppy railing, one tread riser, and nothing to brace off of on the other side. :eek:
i said a quick prayer to the car gods, grabbed the railing, put both feet on the one riser, and let my feet slide down the riser. a hot step around the railing where its attached the riser 1/2 way down and keep on sliding. the one though running through my mind is how and WHERE im going to bail to if this railing gives … turns out there weren’t many options, as i realize that if i land hard on the next landing the concrete will most likely fail. and so will the railing just past it … ugh
some skill, some luck, all adrenalin, and some cool pictures to boot:)
view from the parking area
view from the path
the joe carts, used for moving the grain to and from ships
view from the low roof, 100+ feet up, reached by climbing up stairs w/ rusted treads
far end roof, opposite from downtown buffalo
view down the backside of the building from near the top of the joe cart
more complete view looking at the building from the parking area
top of the joe cart, looking at downtown
and heres the top of the silos, this is the floor below the top “shanty section” and runs the full length of the building
as you can see, the floor isnt doing to well, and its realy hard to judge if your standing on top of one of the small steel beams in the floor, if your on top of one of the silo walls, or if your standing over thin air
so we walked on the conveyor belts, hoping if the concrete gave the conveyor belt would save us … but in all honesty it was pretty dry rotted … we were just hoping any bad floor had strong conveyor belt over it, lol
