So lately I’ve been finding myself rather fascinated with abandoned factorys, buildings, ect. I have a friend from work who likes to go as well - we’ve been to 3 or 4 places so far…just now I realize I should be documenting our excursions, unfortunetly I left all my photo gear at home. I have a few crappy cell phone pictures from 2 spots…the first are 2 HUGE abandoned resevoirs that arn’t really too big of a secret - but the second place I have pictures from is a warehouse we visited today.
I have a few questions for those who have been/ go regularly… First -do you guys bring any kind of weapons? The only entrance we found was a hole in the wall which led to a room where there was clearly some recent homeless person activity…old beds, ratty clothing, empty deuce cans, and cheese puff wrappers were abundent. While no one was there…I was nervous of invading a potentially unstable persons “home”. My friend thought next time we should bring some kind of weapon-however I think just grabbing a brick/rock outside would be the best bet…obviously what were doing is illegal, if we were to get caught it wouldnt help our case at all.
Second, what kind of gear do you bring? We have started keeping a bookbag with gloves, flashlights and a first aid kit, any suggestions on any other useful items? Also, any tips in general would be much appreciated.
I’m going back to the warehouse with my D60…could take some awesome shots in there. We went to the top level as well. There was some sort of fire on the upper level…TONS of charred wood, metal, ect.
those places look very cool! i would love to make the trip out and go with you.
i have been in about 20+ places and have never had trouble with bums or anyone else inside.
had to watch my back more than a few times walking into places and to and from my car tho lol.
i carry a big flashlight, its gotta nice handle,i can swing it really hard.
and i always go with another person atleast. that way he can hold the flashlight while im gouging eyeballs or punching foreheads
i ALWAYS carry extra batteries and gloves in a backpack.
and something to wipe my ass with. for some reason i get the craziest urge to shit while urban exploring.
i however try not to bring.
weapons
stupid people
i feel like going with 5-6 people that have never been exploring is a bad idea.
they tend to just walk without watching there step and breaking shit.
a good way to get dead, or arrested.
the sibleys building downtown has a basement, and a sub basement. some of the old shoe machines are down there when they made or repaired shoes old changing rooms. kinda freaeky, ran into a few homeless people once in a while down there when I had to goto the DMARC… it was pretty cool to see history like that. Especially when I remember going to sibleys as a kid.
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Is it the old laundry place at the end of buffalo road?? right before it ends at west ave. near glide/buffalo.
we used to poke around in there as kids. the other place was the old hotdog factory on maple (been torn down for years) and on the other side of the tracks (torn down the last 10 years) there was a bottle making/recycling place. we went in there once, tons of broken glass, but stacks of pallets of OLD coke bottles from the 70’s brand new in shrink wrap. then some woman showed up, someone thought she had a gun and she chased us. I set a worlds record hopping that fence. I was 13.
Awesome! There were a few of us from roclife that went a bunch of times like 5 or 6 years ago. We went to the old coal powerplant and an abandoned RG&E building and a couple other places which I don’t remember. We tried getting into the Xerox building at the spot but we were pretty sure that one was still alarmed or had some security because it was for sale at the time. If you go I’d like to come along. I’ve been meaning to get back into this since I’ve been back in Rochester, but I’ve never run into people still interested in doing it. I’d really like to explore more of the subway but that is pretty sketchy because there is NO light whatsoever. Also there is the aqueduct by blue cross arena that goes over the river and apparently leads under the library somewhere. I’ve poked around there a few times when I’ve been in the area with friends but I didn’t have a flashlight or anything so I didn’t go far.
Rochester used to have a subway system however it has been shut down since the mid 50’s. There is an opening next to south ave just north of 490 and you can gain access to the tunnel. I believe it is technically fenced off but it is really easy to get into. It is a favorite spot for bums.
The broad street auqeduct was part of the Erie Canal in the 1800’s. Eventually the canal was re-routed outside of downtown and they built a bridge above the aqueduct and the lower portion was used for the subway. You can easily gain entrance to the aqueduct from the sidewalks leading to blue cross arena.
if you look closely in that picture you can see the stairs in the very top right corner, they lead to a sidewalk along the river next to the arena. There is only a railing blocking one of those curved openings into the aqueduct.
where is that second warehouse? it almost looks a bit like buffalo’s grand central terminal.
i remember i made it into there once before they boarded most of it up, was really really cool. saw a bunch of papers dated from the late 1800’s. also climbed around concrete central in buffalo for a bit.
i love urban exploring. i usually bring my camera, some extra batteries, a big swingable mag-lite (weapon!), some gloves and a bottle of water. maybe a snack. thats it. you dont really need much since your usually only there for a few hours.
Thanks for the input everyone! I realized I have one of the 4 D-battery taking, 1.5 ft. long mag-lites that weighs like 20lbs. …I figure that will provide as useful a means of defense as anything! AJC - woah…tons of useful info there…I may check out that Subway today! I’m going back to the warehouse with my D60 …so hopefully you’ll see some better picture this evening! If anyone wants to get together out here and check some of these places out, just let me know when…I’m addicted now!
While in the subway, we found a small tunnel we had to walk hunchback into…this led into a approx. 20 ft tall, 9foot wide room with another small tunnel at the other side of the wall. we went inside this tunnel, which led to another smilarly sized room… then we saw something with eyes, starting right at us. It was still in the shadows, and didnt move too fast, all you could see were the reflection of its eyes from our lights…creepy as shit! We sat there for about 25 seconds (aka forever) just looking right at it. we then slowly backed away…then ran. ALOT of fun though. Went back to the warehouse, and got into another adjoinging warehouse. We could’ve made it to the tops of them, but darkness was approaching, and thats not an area we want to be after dark.
We went back to the warehouses in Rochester with a friend a few days ago… the first one we went into (pictures of the kid swinging some sort of red ribbon/ red ribbon draped from the beams) and there was some sort of fire, along with EVERY enterance being borded up. We were able to use a tire iron to pry open our usual spot.
first blueprint is from the 20’s…the second is from the 30’s. There was a ton of them there, but I just wanted these 2 for my records :)[COLOR=“Silver”]
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Forgot to mention…my next to places to go are the Laundry corp. that I’ve heard entioned here…and I really, REALLY want to get into the Psych. Hospital near highland…anyone who’s interested,lmk. The hospital will take some planning !
