A few years back, I was tipped off by a friend that there was a developmental center the next county over with a ton of abandoned buildings. Of course, we took the next chance we got to go over there. The kid who tipped us off was our ride, but he didn't want to go inside, so he just waited on the porch. In hindsight.... maybe not the best idea.

It turned out to just be one small abandoned doctors house right on the side of the road. We ran up to the building, casually found a way in, and strolled around for a little while.

We spent all of 5 minutes inside, and as we were descending the stairs into the kitchen to leave, I saw through an eye level window two cops on foot walking around the building. They were walking right up to our only exit.After giving it less than a second of thought, I rammed a door with my shoulder, and to my luck it popped open without damaging the frame at all... I think. As we were running away, I saw a cop running full speed after us, screaming for us to stop running. I ran through a bunch of scenarios in my head, and every way it played out seemed to suck, so I told my friends to stop running. After the receiving the typical suburban cop attitude I expected, one of the cops started looking at my camera. To my surprise, he was actually interested in the pictures! I thought from that point we would be fine, but then they called the DHS on us. They cursed us out, scared us a little bit, and then let us on our way.

Luckily I was still a minor then!

Both an entrance and an exit on the same night worth mentioning here :

A while back I was making a trip into the Catacombs of Paris and our entrance was slightly different than the usual manhole that leads straight into the system, but rather you needed to open a small water drain with a pit of 1m, where there is a sideways crawl into a small ladder leading down 5m or so to a room filled with big heavy cables strewn across the room like the aftermath of a domestic violence scene around a spaghetti dinner. It would be rather ominous if it weren't for the overly cute stuffed toy giraffe clinging to the cables.

We call this entrance "Hippy" because from this room you have to climb the walls (literally) to get to a tiny cutting in the wall. The crawl is so tight that we were originally told females couldn't pass because of their large hips. From the other side of the hippy there is another ladder, leading down 20m or so before the ladder runs out and you need to hold onto the stubs from where the authorities cut the ladder off to prevent people getting to the catacombs (tee hee hee, fail Monsieur KATAflick).

All six of us get into the first room and I closed up the grate. We start shovelling bags through the hippy and four of us manage to post ourselves through it before someone opens the grate shines a torch down at us.
- "Ce que tu fais?" shouted the voice. What are you doing. Don't enter here. Etc. Knowing only basic french myself, I relied on my native friend in front of my to guide me, but he said nothing, looked at them and just started to go through the hippy. Fine for him, he would make it through. My mind filled with scenes from movies where the hero tried to escape, crawling, and they've almost made it before the protagonist latches their arm onto his leg, dragging him back and beating him with a baton. Fortunately for the marrow in my bones, they had absolutely no intuition of following us into the dark underworld of Paris to apprehend us and they closed the grill and pushed on. Later my friend told me they weren't speaking with much authority and that's why he wasn't worried. Gave my heart a bloody pounding though.

We enjoyed our balarde; through the tunnels, past the sculptures and encounters with the population sousterranean. Beers, cheese and good craik endued. After 8 or 10 or I don't know how long… you loose time under Paris, we decided to ascend. Although feeding there might be people at our point of entrance, we went looking for another exit.

I was the first up and it was a similar set up to the one we entered, except this one didn't open onto a grand boulevard with wide footpaths, deserted residential street and the shadows of darkness. This one unhinged in a very posh neighbourhood, smack bang in front of a fish market. They were rolling open their shutters as a very muddy and dishevelled group popped their heads of the drain in front of their store like meerkats. They laughed and chuckled at the uncanny site of us coming out of their drain, hopefully not the same one used to flush the fish guts, although at this point in the night (morning?) I don't know if I would even be able to tell. They asked us if we were okay and after seeing who we were, and more impotently the state of our clothes, they brought out a large industrial roll of paper so we could wipe out hands and faces. They brought out a little table and set down a large bucket of warm water so we could wash some of the mud away from our faces. As I was pulling up the last person and putting the grill back over the whole he brought out another massive roll of paper for us to use. I politely declined explaining they had already done enough for us and we should probably push on. The whole time they were joking and laughing and generally being the best damn fish people in the history of fish people. It almost made me want to stop being vegetarian so I could eat their fish.

We got caught once inside an abandoned hotel in NY state. The security guard was driving around outside in a golf cart, but was easily seen and able to hide from whenever he rolled past outside.

We were going to go up into the main tower building, when we saw him drive by outside, so we hid behind two pillars next to a bathroom while one of us went into the bathroom to hide. The guard stops right outside the main entrance, and we hear the front doors being unlocked.

The guard comes inside and walks towards the bathroom and sees us as he walks by and freaks out. We thought he was going to have a heart attack because he was at least 50 and about 400 lbs.

After the initial shock and us telling him that we were just photographers, he told us he was just worried that we were vandals, as the place got trashed the week before by a bunch of kids.

He let us finish looking around as long as we told him how we got in, so he could seal it up.

Turns out he was a really nice guy and used to be in charge of the golf course on the property, now designated to just watch the place so no one would destroy it before they were able to sell the property.

I have more tales from Byberry than I could possibly type up inside of 40 hours.

Here's one.

As usual, about 20 of us were on the roof of the five-story medical building (where the morgue was), partying our asses off in the wee hours when we hear (over the boombox blasting Metal and drunken banter of our white-trash army) "We know you're up there! C'mon down now!"
Looking over the edge, there's a little white Ford Ranger with two rent-a-cops standing there, a hundred yards away, shining a floodlight up on the rooftop.
We all started laughing hysterically, as drunken assholes will do, and promptly unloaded about four cases of empty beer and wine cooler bottles on their ass in a good five-minute volley. You never saw two white guys dance so well.
Of course we all knew the REAL police would be coming in droves, so half of the crowd dispersed among the other 24 buildings via the steam tunnels and the rest of us just went down a few flights to wait for the police.
Knowing they weren't going to come inside, we just sat there and watched them pull in, a good half-dozen paddy-wagon vans and a few patrol cars, sat there for a half hour as they milled about shining flashlights on a dead quiet abandonment, and finally drive away after the majority of them were done their cigarettes and chatting it up.
Good times, I miss them so.

Silly police officers...

Maybe it's coz I'm a bit late, but what makes Byberry such a joke 'round here? Is it just the fact that it's demolished, or...?

Byberry was never a joke. It was a way of life and so much more than just another abandoned big city insane asylum. It was so fucking huge and so easy to infiltrate, it had a social structure and personality unique to itself. You could literally be there alone one night and be the only person within a mile of solitude and the next night run into a huge Rave with dozens of kids or an army of paintballers. You would see people riding motorcycles down the halls or tossing toilets of the roof. Taggers with wagonloads of spraypaint or schoolkids with kegs their brother bought them. Ghost-hunters with three thousand dollar cameras and scrappers with sawzaws and torches. Mostly it was just local white trash scumbags like myself drinking and abusing controlled substances with nothing better to do. Once in a while you might even run into a homeless guy living in there somewhere or an inhabitant from it's sordid past coming home to die. There'd be drunks, drug addicts, kids of all ages, or sometimes, nobody at all. With over two dozen hospital buildings and steam tunnels connecting them all on the edge of a city with over a million people living there, you never knew what suprises Byberry had to hand you. I've even walked into raging infernos there from bored arsonists. You never knew what to expect.

Posted by Radical_Ed Byberry was never a joke. It was a way of life and so much more than just another abandoned big city insane asylum. It was so fucking huge and so easy to infiltrate, it had a social structure and personality unique to itself. You could literally be there alone one night and be the only person within a mile of solitude and the next night run into a huge Rave with dozens of kids or an army of paintballers. You would see people riding motorcycles down the halls or tossing toilets of the roof. Taggers with wagonloads of spraypaint or schoolkids with kegs their brother bought them. Ghost-hunters with three thousand dollar cameras and scrappers with sawzaws and torches. Mostly it was just local white trash scumbags like myself drinking and abusing controlled substances with nothing better to do. Once in a while you might even run into a homeless guy living in there somewhere or an inhabitant from it's sordid past coming home to die. There'd be drunks, drug addicts, kids of all ages, or sometimes, nobody at all. With over two dozen hospital buildings and steam tunnels connecting them all on the edge of a city with over a million people living there, you never knew what suprises Byberry had to hand you. I've even walked into raging infernos there from bored arsonists. You never knew what to expect.

Argh! And to think I used to live right around the corner from it! Sounds like a goldmine. Shame it got demo'd. Is there anything left of it? I heard the tunnels and all are still there, but I'm not sure what use they could be used for anymore besides just being tunnels...

Posted by Radical_Ed Byberry...

I went there one time only back in '07. I had one of those last-person-on-earth experiences. Place was soo quiet. Looked like there was one hell of an end of the world party though.

I got busted pretty much one year ago exactly. Trooper called for helicopter support so there was a chopper buzzing dramatically overhead while the bust went down. The trooper pointed to it and smugly said "eye in the sky". I replied "our tax dollars at work". Then he copped a shitty attitude and took me to the station and wrote me like 3 different tickets. It was pretty clear he had to find a way to get me to pay for that chopper.

I did beat that rap tho.

You actually let yourself get busted at Byberry? Holy crap, dude. You could've just walked away and there's nothing anyone could've done. We got chased by the helicopter three times and always got away. Never left the grounds either, just walked the fuck away. Motts form Opacity was with us the one time and we just walked inside and that was that. That really sucks, bro. As long as you went inside, you were home-free. Did they get you on the grounds away from an entrance? I know you probably didn't know about the ease of escape back then. That sucks, man.

Posted by Radical_Ed You actually let yourself get busted at Byberry? Holy crap, dude. You could've just walked away and there's nothing anyone could've done. We got chased by the helicopter three times and always got away. Never left the grounds either, just walked the fuck away. Motts form Opacity was with us the one time and we just walked inside and that was that. That really sucks, bro. As long as you went inside, you were home-free. Did they get you on the grounds away from an entrance? I know you probably didn't know about the ease of escape back then. That sucks, man.

No - sorry for the confusion. I didn't get busted at the berry - it was at a ceramics plant last year. I was just just reminiscing on my experience at the berry and relaying my own separate hilariously busted scenario in one post.

I was at an abandoned poorhouse a little ways north of Columbus. I was in the car with my dad and we pulled the car around back. I got out of the car and went towards the fence surrounding the place. I noticed the fence had been pushed down a lot in one section so I decide to cross over it and go in. As I got to the door my dad said he saw a highway patrol car slam on the brakes out front and a highway patrol officer got out. I heard nothing and was going to go into the building. My dad thought we had been spotted so he was going to take the car and lead the cop away while I go into the building and come pick me up later.

at a recent meet up in seattle, we were spotted exiting the elevator shaft. luckily it was just someone perusing the top level of the parking garage we were in, but he had a very difficult time making his brain accept the fact that about 6 people exited the elevator without being "in the elevator". anyway he asked us if the elevator we had just stepped off of was his ride. i told him he may want to wait for the next one, and we all promptly left the building.

while roof topping one of the chain hotels in the downtown Seattle area a friend and i were waiting for the employee elevator to take us to a level without rfid controlled access, the doors opened three separate times before we managed to get an empty car. the responses that those two random employees gave us were priceless. the first we told that we were trying to get to the ground floor and did this elevator take us there? his answer ended up being "no" as well as the most complex string of walking directions i have ever heard, i was tempted to follow them simply to see where we'd end up, we walked a couple steps away before returning to try again. The second employee simply stared at us like we were from a different planet and said nothing until the doors closed.

-Se7eN

Once a friend and I were exploring an abandoned house in a neighborhood. A neighbor was out and caught me and I waved. He shook his head and just went back to blowing leaves.

Nothing funny really. I was, similarly under a bridge photographing some Graffiti when I saw headlights. This Bridge is under the train tracks in a forest preserve that has a bar so the only people that come in there are park rangers who think that they are "cops". It was after dark so the park was closed, me and a couple of my buddies bolted. The "cops" tried to follow us but realized that it wasn't really gonna happen. We ran around the block and came back around 15 minutes later to finish taking pictures. Fun Times.

Last summer I was in Manchester with a bunch of international drainers, and we had the brilliant idea of trying a huge drain downtown, and the entrance we chose appeared to be right next to a police station. We decided to give it a try nonetheless.

It fell down on me to go scout the two police vans parked in the lot, to see if someone was inside. Thankfully both vans were empty. After I signaled my group that the coast was clear, we went to look for a way down to the bottom of the river (the drop from the sidewalk to the river was more than 4m high, see pictures below).

We quickly found a way to climb down with minimal risk, but it required LOTS of teamwork (and we nailed it like bosses that day). As there were 9 of us in the group, it couldn't be done quickly enough to remain unnoticed. It didn't take long before people who were passing by stopped to look at us climb down the wall in the sketchiest way possible, there was a gathering of people on a bridge nearby, pointing at us and taking pictures of us, some even asked if we were "urban explorers", to which we replied that we were only going down there to chase Pokemon. All the while we were a bit worried that it would attract the cop's attention, but in the end everything went okay. We even got a round of applause from the onlookers when the last of us reached the bottom of the river safely!

Here are the pics:

1. The wall we had to climb down


2. To the right is one of the police vans parked nearby; higher up, my partners waiting for the all-clear signal


3. We had to climb down another wall, two of us only had hip waders, but TEAMWORK allowed us all to get down with minimal casualties



4. Mission accomplished!


5. We couldn't resist...

Posted by Deconstrukt Last summer I was in Manchester with a bunch of international drainers, and we had the brilliant idea of trying a huge drain downtown, and the entrance we chose appeared to be right next to a police station. We decided to give it a try nonetheless. It fell down on me to go scout the two police vans parked in the lot, to see if someone was inside. Thankfully both vans were empty. After I signaled my group that the coast was clear, we went to look for a way down to the bottom of the river (the drop from the sidewalk to the river was more than 4m high, see pictures below). We quickly found a way to climb down with minimal risk, but it required LOTS of teamwork (and we nailed it like bosses that day). As there were 9 of us in the group, it couldn't be done quickly enough to remain unnoticed. It didn't take long before people who were passing by stopped to look at us climb down the wall in the sketchiest way possible, there was a gathering of people on a bridge nearby, pointing at us and taking pictures of us, some even asked if we were "urban explorers", to which we replied that we were only going down there to chase Pokemon. All the while we were a bit worried that it would attract the cop's attention, but in the end everything went okay. We even got a round of applause from the onlookers when the last of us reached the bottom of the river safely! Here are the pics: 1. The wall we had to climb down click to view 2. To the right is one of the police vans parked nearby; higher up, my partners waiting for the all-clear signal click to view 3. We had to climb down another wall, two of us only had hip waders, but TEAMWORK allowed us all to get down with minimal casualties click to view 4. Mission accomplished! click to view 5. We couldn't resist... click to view

So did you catch the Pokemon or not?

Posted by Doug So did you catch the Pokemon or not?

Of course we did

Posted by Astro http://en.memgener...-waiting-en-ffffff

The images are gone all I get is a broken pic icon.

One time some friends and I got dressed up to take some pictures in a certain dupont castle. Said castle is pretty small and is mostly one room. We heard a car door slam so we decided to quiet down and sit in the tower. A friend and I peaked out of one very small window to see who it was. This castle is also a roadside attraction and it was just a family taking a look. There was a fence between them and us and we werent worried. After a moment we looked again and the family wasnt really looking but the little boy (maybe 3 years old) looked, pointed right at us, and shouted, "THERES PEOPLE IN THERE." We ducked and his father responded telling him he was seeing things and assuring him that there was no way there could be people in the castle. I never meant to traumatize any children in my adventures.