Several months ago I was grabbing some doughnuts for a customer and noticed 4 of the local cops sitting around a table talking. Shocking I know - cops eating doughnuts. Who'da thunk it! Some of my best leads in the past have come from cops so I asked about locations. They all agreed that the Vaughn Building was the place to go, going so far as to show me the POE on google street view. I was warned that the homeless had taken over the place and it was so sketchy that they didnt even go in.

Last Friday I was downtown riding elevators and decided to stop by and just do a quick check on the place. As it turns out the building is now under renovation. I went in and explained that I was an urban explorer and wanted to photograph the place for a book I'm writing (this always gets people interested). They not only gave me permission for an explore, but agreed to take me around to show me some of the more interesting features.

Saturday morning found me back at the same doughnut store grabbing some morning goodies for the folks as s thank you for the explore. I arrived and we were off - 1st stop, the basement where I was promised all of the really cool stuff was. As it turned out most of the "cool stuff" wasnt so cool. The rest of the building was already gutted so it was 13 floors of just open space. The best part of the entire explore was the roof. I HATE heights but I had to take advantage of this unique opportunity so I gutted it out.

Overall a rather disappointing trip as far as explores go. On the positive side, I got to spend the entire weekend in bed after slipping on the stairs on the way down which resulted in a wrecked back and a broken camera lens!

1. This is probably the most interesting thing in the building. An elevator that ran from the basement to the 4th floor. It consisted of nothing but a place for one foot and a handhold. OSHA would have a shit fit over this today!


2. Hallway in the basement. It turned right and ended in a large bay door that was sealed up pretty tight. There are tunnels that go underneath the street that used to connect many of the buildings but are unused today. This was probably one of them and I was frustrated we couldnt get through it.


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13. Tagger war.


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18. Misty who showed me around.


19. Courthouse demo - more on that later.


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I've seen that building...glad you got to explore a little.