-
Packard Plant – May 2008
At 3,500,000 square feet, the Packard Plant was the titan of abandoned buildings. In an earlier post on this trip to Detroit I talked a little about the culture of private urban exploration forums that arose in the 00s. Our particular forum became a very close knit group of friends, and I always thought of…
-
Fisher Body #21 – May 2008
Day 3 of my first adventure to Detroit took us to Fisher Body #21, having capped off the previous day at the Roosevelt Warehouse. Located at the intersection of I94 and I75 the building became a well known eyesore for commuters and symbolic of Detroit’s decline. Fisher Body was founded in 1908 by the Fisher…
-
Roosevelt Warehouse – May 2008
Roosevelt Warehouse, also known as the Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, is located just across the road from Michigan Central Station which we had just explored. The building was made internationally infamous several years after my visit when Jonnie Redding, a homeless man, died in the building. Urban Explorers playing hockey on the ice in…
-
Michigan Central Station – May 2008
We began the day (and…began drinking) at the Wurlitzer building on the first day of our trip. Our next stop was Michigan Central Station. Detroit’s reputation as a dangerous city and the extreme likelihood that we would be drinking heavily during our trip made me think that it might not be a good idea to…
-
Rudolph Wurlitzer Company – May 2008
Urban exploration was hot in the 00s. People had certainly been doing it long before then but it felt like there was a confluence of people getting interested in it, digital photography making photography and video production more accessible, and also a lot of buildings of a certain desirable era being abandoned. The exploring forums…
-
UE Model Shoot at Fort McClary
From the first shot I took with my pinhole camera in junior high school, I avoided photographing people. I dreaded times when my one of my photo teachers would give us an assignment that involved photographing human beings. If you’ve ever wondered about the name of my site, I actually chose it before I got…
-
Northampton State Hospital Memorial Complex – June 29, 2008
The Memorial Complex at Northampton State Hospital managed to outlast the demolition of the Kirkbride…for a while at least. In 2008, I returned to the hospital to take more photos of the complex. This is a short gallery, but you can find other photos of the Memorial Complex in my June 17, 2006 trip and…
-
Northampton State Hospital Memorial Complex – June 17, 2006
Some friends of mine had never been to Northampton and, with demolition looming, I offered to make another pre-dawn assault on the place with them. Naturally, they didn’t wake up in time but I am not complaining. During this trip, I took a turn around the outside of the Kirkbride and then decided to try…
-
Northampton State Hospital – April 2, 2006
As the inevitable demolition of Northampton State Hospital drew closer, rumors began to circulate about increased security. I remember people saying on the forums that there was a Massachusetts State Police Officer who sat on the campus and turned people looking to explore the buildings away. Not to be deterred, I decided I would wake…
-
Northampton State Hospital – March 11, 2006
My 5th trip to Northampton State Hospital finally led me to the morgue. It was located in a dark corridor in the basement underneath the main cafeteria which you could only get to through the theater, and I had never been able to find it despite knowing the general location. One of my regrets about…
