This building is located on an island in which a large and popular hotel used to reside. The hotel was closed in 2005 and sat empty until its demolition in 2019. This hotel was apparently one of the most cool and fun places to hangout in the entire city, so its closure was unfortunate. The reason for its closure(according to my dad) was due to the fact it sits right next to the lake and had violations with the DNR. Though it is gone, a small building and a footbridge still remain. I'm not sure what the purpose of this building was as only one door is accessible and it leads to a small room, while the rest are boarded off, and this leads me to a question since I'm new to all this.

How frowned upon is it by the UE community to remove boarding from doors and/or windows in order to gain access to the interior? I understand that this is clear vandalism, but I'm not sure exactly how people view it and I want to make sure I don't do something disrespectful, so any experiences and input is appreciated.

Here are some of the photos I took:


^The entrance to the footbridge.


^Someone must've passed away nearby, and this writing on the rail honors him

^The building that remains from the original hotel, fenced off probably due to demolition plans

^Main entrance


^Inside the two bins at the bottom were horrible arrays of carpet-like layers of spiderwebs and old wasp nests


^The inside at night. I didn't go in due to the amount of mold and lack of respirator. The next two are different angles.



I hope I can come back here another time to check out the other rooms, depending on the wooden board situation.

Boarding of the majority of the building is indeed curious.... My personal thoughts on removing boards is don't. In my experience, if you return enough times, someone else will have done it for you. I am too old for petty BS, and you NEVER know who might have seen you tugging at boards, regardless of obscurity. I prefer to let someone else take the additional B&E risk. MHO, my $0.02

General consensus tends to be no to removing boards, at least in online circles. In the urbex communities offline it's a bit more of a grey area. It IS far more legally risky, as you're often committing felony burglary (or at least B&E). That being said, sometimes it's the only way in- so here's some hypothetical tips, not that you ever plan to use these theoretical tips of course.

- Be discreet about removal. Do it at a time when nobody's likely to notice you, and do it quick and quiet. Try to do it on a on whatever face of the building is least likely to get you noticed.

- If there's a chance you could've been seen (even if you don't THINK you were), don't linger after removing the board. Don't go inside and explore yet. Immediately flee the scene and come back a day or two later in a different outfit, when the heat has died down and nobody can prove it was you who removed the board.

- Hide the opening you made. Place the loose board back over the opening to make it LOOK secure so that the entrance you just made isn't obvious, and may remain unsealed for longer.

- Wear gloves and use cheap tools you're willing to ditch in a pinch. Don't leave fingerprints, and ABSOLUTELY DO NOT get caught with tools on you. Building off this, don't carry tools as part of your routine equipment- only carry them for specific tasks, and ditch them to retrieve later once that task is complete in case you get caught mid-explore.

- Ask yourself if the spot is worth it. Is this spot cool enough to risk felony charges to see it? Carefully consider the risk/reward ratio if you're going to use tools.

Thanks to both you guys for the advice and it is true that waiting could have good results. Though the boards were still up, the fencing around the building was knocked over by something, probably a person, only a few days after my visit. I'll make sure to keep this location on hold and drive by every now and then to check up, thanks.

fr00tcake, you were exactly correct. I went out across the street to find a geocache and noticed how some of the boards were laying against the building with 3 thin broken windows open. I parked my car in the nearest parking lot and walked over and discreetly hopped in the window. Nothing like what I expected. After nervously poking around a little bit I noticed how one half of the building had its floor almost completely sunken in. Like not just a few inches, this floor was damn near 4 feet lower than where it should've. I checked out most that I could without having myself fall through, since I'm not sure if there's a basement or not or if the building is elevated. But, when I was walking away, one of the holes in the roof seemed to have light coming through it, which must've been in the attic because there were no lights on when I was in there. Pretty creepy for a building abandoned since the early 2000s.

The boards must've also been moved recently. Apart from the people who did it, judging by the surroundings, most of the damage inside seemed to have been done by mother nature herself. It felt weird feeling as if I was one of the very few people to have walked in there in the last decade, even on the google street view it's the same boarding, so it must've been a long time.

Posted by Thecurious some of the boards were laying against the building with 3 thin broken windows open.

Yup - I see it all the time. I leave the B&E to someone else. MHO.