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UER Forum > Archived UE Main > A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE (Viewed 856 times) paulpa  This member has been banned. See the banlist for more information. Location: Canuckistan Gender: Male Part-time troll  |  A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE < on 1/29/2012 11:37 PM >   If you cannot get out to an explore soon, I will give you a reading list that will be sure to occupy your time. The majority of these articles, I cannot find anymore but for subscription services. And anyone that I copy and pasted here is without permission. But I still think that they should be seen. I am positive that most of them are reposts, two or three of them are confirmed reposts, but the goal of this is to get everything into one place. Feel free to add more. Bender, J. (2006) Abandonment issues: The secret world of Julia Solis. Bust. http://web.mac.com....bust.010506-1.PDF Garrett, B. L. (2011) Assaying history: Creating temporal junctions through urban exploration. Enviroment and Planning D: Society and Space. http://royalhollow..._urban_exploration Bennett, L. (2011) Bunkerology: A case study in the theory and practice of urban exploration. Enviroment and Planning D: Society and Space. http://www.envplan...torials/d13410.pdf Special Reviews Section: Urban exploration as archaeological engagement: a review of http://infiltration org/ — `the zine about places you're not supposed to go'. European Journal of Archeology. http://eja.sagepub...nt/10/1/89.extract Rowsdower, Z. Fresh rot: Urban exploration and the preservation of decay. Univeristy of Manitoba. http://umanitoba.c...cle/viewFile/81/39 Ball, N. (2007) Urban Exploration: Seeing engineering with new eyes. Canadian Consulting Engineer. http://www.canadia...ration/1000215423/ Urban explorers love their dirty, dangerous passion Section: Entertainment, pg. c11 ~~~~~~~~ By Allison Gillmor This fascinating doc starts with a disclaimer: "The following contains activities of a dangerous and legally questionable nature. We do not promote the activities portrayed in this film." Maybe not, but Minnesota filmmaker Melody Gilbert sure makes them look cool. Gilbert investigates the urban explorer movement, in which people explore the "wilderness" of their cities -- old steam tunnels, derelict factories, sewers and drains, abandoned hospitals, roofs and elevator shafts. Urban exploration is sometimes portrayed as "an elite super-ninja thing," as one Scottish practitioner jokes. Gilbert introduces us to a broad range of regular people, from Midwestern engineers to Christian college students to hardcore punks. What they share is a boundless curiosity about the way things work, and a compulsion to seek out the world hidden underneath everyday surfaces. One interview subject points out that urban exploration is a legal grey area, sort of like "real world hacking." Most serious practitioners abide by a code of conduct: no theft, no vandalism, no drinking on the job. That last one is important in a potentially deadly hobby. "Levels of dangerosity," as one guy calls them, can get quite high, with rotting boards, slippery drains, busted windows and -- in one memorably disgusting sewer outing -- methane gas. Some like the physical challenge. As with most athletes, we have gear minimalists and gear maniacs. (Some people keep their car trunks packed with climbing equipment, hip-waders, lights and ropes.) Others see urban exploration as a creative endeavour, and Gilbert showcases still photos taken on these outings, strangely beautiful records of the melancholy afterlife of buildings, the poetry of decay, the flaking layers of lost history. Most of the action takes place in the Twin Cities area, but Gilbert also looks at the international scene, which is now well connected through the Internet. There are national tendencies. Scots seem to prefer historical buildings -- old lunatic asylums, crumbling manors. The French like to drink wine and eat baguettes amid piles of bones in the Parisian catacombs. The Americans pursue the rusted-out remnants of old industrial economies. Gilbert tracks the explorations in appropriately grungy style. Just as importantly, she shares the passionate curiosity of her subjects. ------ In search of our urban mythology Section: GTA, pg. GT01 When two men were arrested for taking a stroll in the sewers on Sunday, police were flummoxed. "That's not normal, people going down into the sewers," said Det. Dan Murphy at 14 Division. "Why are they going down into the sewers?" Well, it really doesn't smell that bad, according to one of the men arrested. "For the most part it isn't toilet waste, which makes up a small part of the stream," Andrew Emond told the Daily Commercial News and Construction Record last month. "It's mostly water from showers, baths and dishwashers, which gives off a kind of soapy, organic smell, which isn't unpleasant." Michael Cook, 27, of Toronto, and Emond, 35, of Montreal, were arrested after a perplexed citizen saw them enter the sewer near Ossington Ave. and Dundas St. W. Both face charges of mischief to interfere with property. "I don't feel comfortable commenting on this event just yet until it's been resolved in court," Emond wrote in an email Monday. Emails to Cook were not returned. Both men are urban explorers and photographers. Cook runs www.vanishingpoint.ca, and Emond runs www.undermontreal.com Both have explored drains for several years and most recently, the sewers that replaced Garrison Creek, in the western part of downtown. Urban exploration is a hobby and subculture in which people venture into drains, abandoned buildings and infrastructure to photograph the forgotten past and unseen workings of a city. Some ask permission, some don't. "It's illegal what we do, unfortunately," said a Toronto photographer acquaintance of Cook and Emond, who's accompanied them twice to the sewers. "We don't do this to break the law," said the fellow explorer, who did not want his name used. "It's about urban cartography, viewing the city that isn't visualized through streets and other landmarks." He said they are usually outfitted with hip waders and goggles, and always listen to the weather forecast to make sure there's no rain. Urban exploration can be deadly. In 2009, a man died when the tunnel he was exploring in Minneapolis-St. Paul filled with rainwater. "We take every precaution necessary to keep ourselves safe," the photographer said. "Every time it rains obviously those pipes are going to fill up and are potentially dangerous." In a 2007 interview with a U.S. blog, Cook said he once ran into trouble while navigating the "surge spillways" that "spiral downwards" at the Ontario Power Generating Station in Niagara. Cook said he lost his footing and slid 60 metres to the bottom. "I was very lucky to come away from that with just a few friction burns and a sprained thumb," he told BLDGBLOG. Although many urban explorers publish their photos under aliases, Cook and Emond have always been upfront about their identities on their respective websites. Emond has said he's explored Montreal's sewer and waste water system for three years without any repercussions. "In fact, I've received positive responses from a wide range of people, including historians, engineers, architects, community planners, the media, artists and even local politicians," he said. Cook has said most urban explorers aren't interested in "undergrounding" because it can be kilometres on end of "featureless pipe." Troy Paiva, a San Francisco photographer who wrote Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration, has other reasons to stay above ground. "I don't do functioning infrastructure. I find it's too easy to get thrown in jail," he said. Paiva has run into police, property owners and people with shotguns, all telling him to scram. He's never been charged. "You have to learn how to talk to people and say you're just a weirdo artist, not a vandal or a thief. I think most people think you're in there to do drugs, break the place up or to tag it," he said. In his interview with BLDGBLOG, Cook said legal issues around sewer exploration are "pretty grey. The only thing that really dictates what time you can go is traffic conditions. If you have to use a streetside manhole, you generally don't want to be doing that during the day." Stanley Greenberg, who has photographed the infrastructure beneath New York City since the early '90s, says urban explorers are like well-intentioned computer hackers. "Part of the challenge is finding your way in. They're not there to do any harm, these aren't people who do graffiti," he said. "Granted it's occasionally dangerous ... but most of the time it's pretty harmless." Cook and Emond's acquaintance said he felt obliged to speak about urban exploration to dispel myths. "A city like Toronto desperately needs more urban mythology. Instead of having crap like the CN Tower, the SkyDome represent the city, we present things that have been around much longer that most people aren't even aware of." With files from John Goddard Copyright (c) 2010 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved. ----- Young `urban explorers' look into the past of abandoned spaces HALIFAX (CP) _ Abandoned buildings. Crumbling concrete walls behind barbed wire. Empty tunnels covered in graffiti. These are what interest so-called "urban explorers" as they venture into derelict and condemned places to discover _ and photograph _ what's inside. And as Internet blogs and websites become central to the art of urban exploration, a growing number of youth are learning about long-neglected places that remain off limits to most people. "Documenting the forgotten, that's what I consider urban exploring to be," says Brent Saulnier, 16, of Beaverbank, N.S. "It gives me respect (for the buildings), and maybe places like that can be preserved." Saulnier started urban exploring a year ago after reading about it online. He has spent a lot of time with his digital camera at places like the 40-year-old abandoned radar station nearby, posting the photos on his personal website. He always researches the places he explores, which he says gives him a new perspective and appreciation of history. "I find it intriguing how society can expand but places are so forgotten about. People just leave them there." Several Internet sites bring these explorers together, offering lists of places to visit while providing a space to exchange photos, tell stories and offer advice. One of the most popular sites is the Urban Exploration Resource _ www.uer.ca _ set up by a 23-year-old from Toronto who calls himself Avatar-X. The website boasts about 10,000 members, though its creator says about 1,000 are active on the site's message boards and forums. He says as urban exploring moves online, more young people continue to join in. Most users on his site, he says, are in their 20s or younger. "Having this information on the Internet has made it a lot easier to find," says Avatar-X, who uses a pseudonym because he worries urban exploring, which can involve trespassing, could land him in legal trouble. "I think it's great because these old buildings have a lot of historical significance, but nobody cares." Julie Belanger, a 29-year-old urban explorer from Moncton, N.B., started wandering into abandoned buildings and snapping photos when she was a teenager _ before she had any idea that other people were doing the same thing. "We hear a lot that the younger generation doesn't care about history, they don't have a sense of where we're from or where we're going," says Belanger. "But the people that you see doing urban exploration right now are people in their 20s, which for the most part didn't see all those (buildings) when they were active." While she thinks it's good for young people to start urban exploring, she's also worried its increased popularity, especially among youth, could have negative consequences. "For us, exposure can be quite bad," she says. "We've seen that a new location goes online and you see graffiti, you see damage done. And this is absolutely not what urban exploration is about." Urban explorers say they work hard to prevent vandalism. Websites that list potential exploration sites are often protected by passwords, allowing only trusted users inside. "We don't harm the places we explore. We love the places we explore," reads a passage on one urban exploration website, www.infiltration.org Malcolm Fyfe, an 18-year-old urban explorer in Montreal, recognizes that he is sneaking into places where he might not be allowed. "It is trespassing, but it's . . . all in why you're trespassing," he says. "You don't want to destroy it, you want to see the history." (c) 2006, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. ---- NOCTURNAL TOURISTS; URBAN EXPLORERS CAN'T RESIST THE LURE OF THE FORBIDDEN Story Type: NEWS Section: GO, Pg. G11 'When I see a boarded-up house with a No Trespassing sign, I think to myself, 'What's so evil in there that I can't see it?' " N.V. Kahos (not his real name) says over coffee at a Gore Park café. "Too many of us think the only things worth looking at in our cities and towns are those safe and sanitized attractions that require an admission fee. It's no wonder people feel unfulfilled ... on their way out through the gift shop." -- Urban explorer Ninjalicious. He's 22, lives with his parents in Ancaster and works for a courier company. He's a bit punk in his camouflage pants, leather jacket with pinned-on buttons and taste for The Ramones. He's one of the locals into urban exploration (UE), an illicit hobby making our downtown a haven for illegal adventure. It's simple, he says. You just go places you're not supposed to. That's why he uses an alias. Kahos has been exploring for about five years, and tracks his exploits on the website uer.ca. Late at night, or on quiet afternoons, he's been in a graffiti-splashed Ancaster drain, a boarded-up Southcote home that reeks of dead animals, neglected lofts on Dundurn Street South. Early on, being from Ancaster, he visited the Book House, a two-storey brick home built by a family of German weavers in 1811. It's had several fires and has been abandoned for years. It's one of the highlights of his UE career. Kahos has posted digital photos of the house on uer.ca: its fireplace, its rotten fridge, its broken second-floor toilet with its pink seat cover. Even one photo with a weird, ghostly white blur in it. It may have been paranormal, he says, and it made his hair stand up on end. "We try to do as much research on a site as possible," says Kahos, who finds floor plans and UE tips all over the Internet, even on the city's map site. Online, it seems UE is a high-tech hobby like geocaching, in which you find hidden trinkets using a GPS device. Not so, says UE pioneer Ninja- licious, a Torontonian who coined the term urban exploring in 1996 in his 'zine Infiltration. The dozens of Ontario groups, and hundreds worldwide, are just taking a pre-Internet hobby online. The web makes researching, organizing and boasting about UE missions easy. But history has much earlier examples of curious adventurers drawn to catacombs (cataphiles), drains (drainers), caves (speleologists) and buildings. According to Infiltration's website, Philibert Aspairt, perhaps the first cataphile, got lost in the Parisian catacombs in 1793 while exploring by candlelight. His body was found 11 years later. In 1921, in what may be the first organized group expedition into an abandoned building, Dadaists André Breton, Paul Eluard, Francis Picabia and Tristan Tzara visit the deserted St. Julien le Pauvre church in Paris to highlight places "which really have no reason for existing." In 1977, the San Francisco Suicide Club, which does "fringe exploration," is born and later renamed the Cacophony Society. In 1986, Melbourne, Australia cavers Doug, Sloth and Woody create the Cave Clan, which later absorbs rival groups and splinters due to infighting. It's not a hobby you'll see on TSN. "It's kind of anti-authoritarian and attracts people who oppose authority, or at least see a Do Not Enter sign and are willing to accept those risks for themselves," says Ninjalicious, who prints 2,000 copies of his three-times-a-year 'zine that is mailed to Australia and Japan. For the record: Entering a private building without permission is breaking and entering, a Criminal Code offence that can land you 10 years in jail. Trespassing is a provincial offence with a $110 fine. Hamilton police don't recall any recent arrests of UE'ers. It springs from curiosity, drawing adherents like hackers and engineers. Kahos says most locals are young, in their late teens, 90 per cent of them computer geeks. It's about evasion, so dark clothes are often used. So are tools like two-way radios (to talk to teammates across a big building), rope (to climb when stairs are broken), a flashlight with a red-filter lens (harder to spot, better for night vision), rubber boots, sometimes even hip-waders (for sites like the 150-year-old Thistle Club with very wet basements.) It's a hobby with a disputed code of ethics. Ninjalicious, who prefers to enter occupied buildings, says "genuine urban explorers never vandalize, steal or damage anything." Like camping, his rule is "take only photos, leave only footprints." Kahos disagrees. He's taken mementos he's sure no one will miss. Award goblets from the Thistle Club's basement. An old To Do list from the Pioneer Cleaners laundromat inside the Lister Block. One UE'er found a human brain in an old hospital, he says. "It's a real grey area. You don't take everything in sight but if it's a business card from an abandoned building ... " says Kahos, who resents Torontonians who try to set rules for the whole community. "Exploring has been around since people could stand erect and walk. How do you dictate rules for that?" Disputes aside, Hamilton is home to a burgeoning UE community who adopt nicknames like Sugarton Matt Smooth, Cosmic Bard, Kowalski. And on uer.ca you can see their favourite spots to explore: Stelco, HMCS Haida, Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital and the 1853 Thistle Club, which once gave Kahos quite a scare. "Last time we did the Thistle Club, there was a drunken transient near the entrance. It was like, 'Whoa! What are you doing here?' And he was like, 'Well, what are you doing here?' "We said, 'We're going to go inside to take a look.' And he just said, 'OK, but don't get caught.'" [email protected] 905-526-2468 Copyright (c) 2004 The Hamilton Spectator. All Rights Reserved. ---- Profile: Urban explorers going into forbidden zones in the city such as abandoned subway tunnels and sharing their experiences with others via the Internet 8:00-9:00 PM , This is NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Linda Wertheimer. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. In a number of US cities, there's a growing movement called urban exploration. Its practitioners are mostly young, white, middle-class city dwellers, and their explorations consist mostly of breaking into abandoned subway tunnels, old buildings or unused drainage systems. They do it just for fun, reporting on what they've seen via the Internet. In New York City, they even have their own magazine called Jinx. Reporter Alix Spiegel accompanied three of these urban explorers, who use code names, as they investigated an unused subway tunnel in Manhattan. ALIX SPIEGEL reporting: Laughing Boy doesn't think the electrified third rail is active. Lefty agrees. Danger Boy says nothing. They're standing on the lower level of a Manhattan bridge on the tracks of an abandoned subway line in front of a plywood barrier, which, according to Laughing Boy and Lefty and Danger Boy, wasn't here the last time they visited. The idea--and it seemed like a good one--was to access the abandoned subway line through the opening on the bridge and then trace the tracks down underground to explore New York's labyrinth of subway tunnels. Only now, there's this barrier, this new barrier that no one had anticipated. And the only opening in the barrier and, thus, the only opening in the abandoned subway line is a small hole, maybe two feet wide, maybe a foot high, certainly large enough to accommodate the width of the human body, but there's just one small problem. To crawl through the hole, you need to make it past the third rail--the third rail, which may or may not have 700 volts of deadly electricity coursing through it. Like I said, Laughing Boy doesn't think the electrified third rail is active. Lefty agrees. Danger Boy says nothing. They stand on the tracks for a minute and consider their options: Turn back; smash a new hole in the plywood barrier away from the third rail; risk electrocution by using the hole. Laughing Boy gets down on his stomach. He presses his body as close to the plywood rim and as far away from the electrified third rail as possible and tests his luck. (Soundbite of Laughing Boy crawling) LAUGHING BOY: I'm going to go on a diet. SPIEGEL: Laughing Boy makes it through. Lefty follows, then Danger Boy and finally me, all of us straining hard against the edge of the plywood, trying to keep the third rail at as much of a distance as we possibly can. It's hard, but that, of course, is the point. It should be hard. Laughing Boy, Lefty and Danger Boy are urban explorers, part of a new underground community of people who systematically seek out the dark, the difficult and the forbidden corners of the city--defunct drainage systems, no access hotel roofs, the occasional City Hall. And like all serious explorers, they are most interested in those places that are least accessible, what Laughing Boy describes as the frontiers of the urban landscape. LAUGHING BOY: You know, if a place is publicly accessible, it's obviously worthless. You might say it's analogous to a natural setting. You know, if there are tourist signs saying, `Watch your step here,' or, `Don't go too close to the edge,' you know that you're not in an unspoiled wilderness, you're not in a frontier. The same goes for the urban frontier. In fact, if it's not difficult, if it's not forbidden, then it simply is not going to make the grade. SPIEGEL: I should probably mention that Laughing Boy, Lefty and Danger Boy are wearing suits, business suits, dark blue with conservative looking ties, dress shirts and finely buffed shoes. They wear the suits in the same spirit that the jungle explorer will wear the greens and browns of the natural world into the rainforest. It's their urban camouflage. Laughing Boy, who's 29, is the spokesperson of the group, someone who seems to have very definite ideas about what is and is not cool, and the categories break down pretty much as you would expect. The suburbs, nine-to-five jobs, corporate drones and people who, quote, "don't have style," are not cool. The city, rebellion, graffiti artists and people who, quote, "are independent thinkers," are. Weirdly, though, even though their activities are illegal, Laughing Boy and his crew don't seem to object to the police, whom they view not as enemies, but as friends. LAUGHING BOY: We see the police as our partners in this, because if the police were not there to keep the average citizen out of these forbidden zones, then they wouldn't be there; they wouldn't exist. And if they were open to the public, then they would have to have safety rails. They would have to have stairs and wheelchair ramps. I mean, they'd have to have all of the facilities that are designed to make them livable to ordinary people. And being an ordinary person is precisely the opposite of our endeavor here. SPIEGEL: The object of the endeavor, as Laughing Boy is happy to tell you, is to do something rare, to report on some new experience that no one has yet documented, or maybe discover some new and significant archaeological site that no one has yet even imagined. Laughing Boy is sure that he's looking for something. He's just not sure what. LAUGHING BOY: Some kind of a sociological phenomenon perhaps, or some kind of new artform, something akin to graffiti but different perhaps. Who knows? I mean, it's, by definition, indescribable until it's discovered, but I think that there's some kind of a gem and perhaps thousands of gems out there waiting. I mean, I guess it's analogous to the scientists who spend their time listening to the radio dishes. You know, they have no hope. They never received the least evidence that they might ever hear anything back when they listen to these dishes, and yet they persist because they feel that it makes sense that someone would be out there. It just seems logical. And we feel the same way when we explore a subway tunnel. We feel like there's going to be something out there. And in a way, there always is. We are now in the interior of this subway tunnel which is currently closed for construction, and it's a site that few have seen. (Soundbite of subway) SPIEGEL: The tunnel is dirty, but well lit. There's debris and abandoned construction materials everywhere, tracks which stop and start and stop again. We walk past a series of low arches into a service corridor parallel to the tracks. There we find a wall scribbled from ceiling to floor with some kind of diary entry. Laughing Boy tells me it's the work of one of the most famous graffiti artists of the '70s and '80s, a writer named Revs(ph) who did literally hundreds of murals worth thousands of dollars of damage. In the late '80s, as the story goes, Revs was banned from working by the police. They told him that they knew his handwriting and his tag, his graffiti name, and that if they ever caught him spraying again, they'd put him in jail and throw away the key. His work abruptly stopped appearing. Laughing Boy tells me no one heard from him for years. Then he points at the corner of the diary entry. It's dated 1998. LAUGHING BOY: I can actually probably make out some of the diary entry. SPIEGEL: Could you read it out loud? LAUGHING BOY: I'm going to try and read it. It's difficult to read. Something about, `They move like a comedy team, listen to Kiss,' like the band, `and Chris, would recite "Saturday Night Live" with Jane, you ignorant slut.' You remember that line from "Saturday Night Live"? `When'--something, something--`Chris would tell her'--I can't read the rest, but, you know, that's actually, if you--I believe that it's supposed to rhyme, but I can't make out all the words. But it apparently is a diary entry in the form of a rap that is written out. And, of course, we know that rap and graffiti are two of the elements of hip-hop, so this is a little hip-hop culture we've come across here in this remote part of the world. SPIEGEL: We continue down the corridor, past more tags, more debris and a large mural. It reads, `I'm thinking about my taxes.' Then we reach a small service cabin with a closed door, and Laughing Boy tells us to be quiet. He says that people live down here, that this might be someone's home, that we should be respectful. (Soundbite of footsteps) LAUGHING BOY: There appear to be, in a small opening to the left of this locked cabin, someone who is sort of swaddled in blankets, and he's apparently asleep or else pretending to be asleep. I didn't see his face. Could have been a man or a woman. But at any rate, I thought that it would be the polite thing to let him lie. (Soundbite of footsteps) SPIEGEL: We softly back away. This is part of the urban explorer ethic: Do not interfere. Do not disturb. Leave no permanent mark of your presence. You're an explorer, after all, not a vandal. Simply come and view and leave. Share your findings with other urban explorers via the Internet, self-published zines. It's a kind of modern ad-hoc amateur anthropology. LAUGHING BOY: I mean, there are entire sections of this decaying wasteland that we call the inner city of America that have been mapped out and described in intricate detail by urban explorers. This information is freely shared, and it is used by others. I mean, it's a fascinating subculture, and it's a body of knowledge that grows all the time. SPIEGEL: The subculture of urban explorers also grows, more and more people of different ages and backgrounds attempting to reinterpret what it means to live in a city, what it means to be an explorer, what it means to stand at a frontier. LAUGHING BOY: You have to simply believe that places that are off limits are interesting places that are worth checking out and that the entire notion that there's some kind of a sacred wall around these off-limit places is only as real as you allow it to be. And if you just walk through, it's like Alice through the looking glass, you just have to be willing to stick your head through and you'll find that not only are you unscathed, but that you've benefited greatly from the experience. SPIEGEL: We leave the subway tunnel by the same cramped hole through which we entered, again, straining hard against the rim of the plywood, trying to avoid touching the third rail. For NPR News, this is Alix Spiegel in New York. (Soundbite of subway) (Soundbite of music) Copyright (c) 2000 National Public Radio (r). Used Without Permission ----- Heart of (urban) darkness Explorers head into abandoned buildings 'Where we're going no one ever goes' Section: Metropolis, pg. B02 You're not supposed to be here. But that's the point. You stand in the dark, outside a decayed, rusted building. Your flashlight's beams light the graffiti: Do Not Enter. You hear water dripping. And the crickets are so, so loud. "Where we're going - no one ever goes," your companion Cory says. "It's this weird, scary, abandoned building - you don't get more classic horror movie than this." He's right. In the movies, this is where people go to die. But Cory isn't here to find Leatherface. He didn't come for a scare. He came for discovery. Cory's not his real name. He's 33, owns a furniture store in Toronto and is hooked on exploring abandoned warehouses, old factories and grain silos. Right now, he and his friends are entering a plant that's been derelict for about 15 years. It's called urban exploration. Taking photos to document their adventure, explorers creep through tunnels, wander forsaken sites and steal into "authorized personnel only" areas in busy hotels and hospitals. Some post accounts of their voyages online. Loose-knit urban exploration groups have formed in the U.S. Web sites such as The Urban Exploration Resource at www.uer.ca provide forums for self-proclaimed city archaeologists. A Toronto-based explorer who goes only by the name Ninjalicious publishes 2,000 copies of his urban exploration magazine, Infiltration, three times a year. The magazine's been around for 10 years. He says thousands of people engage in exploration all over the world. Cory and his friend have packed Super Brite flashlights - $4.29, bought from Dominion. They don't look like they're dressed for a treacherous, secret adventure. Cory's wearing a black shirt tucked into khaki shorts. His friend (he calls her Monster) is in denim overalls and a sweatshirt. They slip through a cavity in the wall, squeezing past splintered wood. Inside, their lungs fill with dust. They shine their lights. Rotted wood. Rusted metal. Piles of red dust and gravel. Conveyor belts strewn on the ground. Light fixtures hanging precariously from the ceiling. Cory says it's like you're wandering on the shipwrecked Titanic or a building after an earthquake. Everything is rubble. But there's quiet beauty in the ruins. He's excited, his speech is rushed, but his movements are slow, careful. He touches the wall; it's spongy and crumbles under his fingers. Every few steps, he says: "Look at that." Monster lags behind, snapping photos. She works at a computer company. "It's neat to be able to acquire perspective," Cory says. "You're basically looking at the hidden bowels of the world around you, taking note of the unseen things that all of us take for granted." On his web site, www.infiltration.org, Ninjalicious writes: "Genuine urban explorers never vandalize, steal or damage anything - we don't even litter. "We're in it for the thrill of discovery and a few nice pictures, and probably have more respect for and appreciation of our cities' hidden spaces than most of the people who think we're naughty. We don't harm the places we explore. We love the places we explore." Urban explorers are not common trespassers, he says in an e-mail interview. "Explorers usually research and plan their excursions in advance, and when they visit a site they make it a priority to leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but photographs." What kind of people do this? "A lot of them have computers, I guess." Cory climbs an industrial ladder surrounded by a steel cage. "We're going up the rocket ship ladder," he says eagerly. He tells you to beware of the "pointy piece of glass pointed right at your throat" as you follow. On the second level, you distribute your weight carefully lest the ground breaks beneath you. "Don't touch this pole. It appears to be holding up the ceiling," he says. "Don't step there. The floor's rotted through." They scale a roof, their runners scraping shingles and their fingers clinging to a ledge to avoid slipping. Cory wants to view the cityscape. "I think I'm going to look back on this and think that I was insane," Monster says. Every so often, they come across signs of life. Animal feces. A beer bottle. "Objects in places have life histories of their own. They have stories that they tell," Cory says. He talks like he's the Crocodile Hunter. There's a chair in front of a hole in the wall; it looks into another long, dark room. Cory touches electric panels, control panels. "This is so Dr. Who," Monster says. Cory admits he has an anti-authoritarian streak. But he has respect. "The rule is, you never break, you only enter," he says. A spokesperson for Toronto Police said urban spelunking was new to him. "I've never heard of this before - where they go in to explore," says Sergeant Jim Muscat. "Clearly they're trespassing." In Ontario, trespassing carries a $55 fine. But Muscat said he isn't sure if officers would charge people in abandoned sites. "You need the owner of the property to complain. Without a complainant, how do you proceed?" Cory and Monster walk through a brick tunnel, along trolley tracks - it's like you're in an Egyptian tomb. And there's no end. "This is some sort of post-apocalyptic vision or nightmare," Cory says. "It's like layers of history, like sediments, superimposed on each other." Suddenly, they hear noises. A bang. Then more bangs. In the darkness, it sounds like it came from everywhere. "Do you hear footsteps?" He whispers. Their flashlights begin to dim. Another bang. "Did you hear that?" With that, they retreat. To find the nearest opening into sweet moonlight. If your light dies while you're inside the plant, you'll never find your way out. Outside, Cory is dejected. He passes a sign that warns of asbestos and silica contaminants inside. He grumbles that they let a little noise cut short his almost three-hour expedition. But back in the car, he's quickly talking about the next place. For him, there are always more places where no one goes. Copyright (c) 2004 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved. ---- URBAN EXPLORERS GET THEIR THRILLS COMBING OUT-OF-THE WAY HAUNTS Story Type: NEWS Section: TRAVEL, Pg. G10 Matthew Beaton finds himself tempted by manholes. He'll occasionally dip through narrow pipes in Calgary to a maze of underground drain tunnels leading to secret rooms and cross-city pathways. In Vancouver, abandoned buildings tease Jester's curiosity. When he passes one in daytime, he can't help but make a mental note to return after dark with a flashlight and friends. For snoops like these, travel rarely involves leaving their home city. They are among a unique group of adventurers who prefer to discover their surroundings by exploring forbidden territory -- the back rooms of hotels, abandoned wings of hospitals and dangerous subway tunnels. There are so many places that nobody gets to see, and Jester, who won't give his real name but says he's about 30, would like to see what's there. He says "urban exploration'' is not about vandalism. Urban explorers won't break anything to get into a place, he said, adding that they won't tag the place by leaving a mark anywhere. Jester is part of a crew of about 12 West Coast explorers. For them, the thrill lives in just going in, seeing what's there and then leaving. The only thing they take is photographs. His group's proudest conquest was the Riverview psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., a sprawling complex with an abandoned wing used occasionally for movie sets. Beaton's great find was a drain tunnel that stretches from an industrial area of southeast Calgary to the city's north end. "You can walk pretty much halfway across the city in that one,'' he says. But one of his favourite spots is the "chill room'' -- an underground chamber with good airflow and concrete benches built into the wall. "Sometimes we'll pick up some Wendy's across the street, pop a manhole . . . take the drain underneath,'' says the 18-year-old, a second-year computer student at DeVry Institute. In general, the haunts of many citified spelunkers are relatively mundane. Much of the thrill comes from being where few others have gone, without having to leave their bustling metropolis. However, it can be a dangerous -- not to mention illegal -- hobby, placing over-curious snoops in the paths of oncoming subway trains, the rising waters of storm drains or in plain view of surveillance cameras. A favourite target in Toronto is the subway system, which houses a secret station beneath the operational Bay Street stop. The lower station was only used for eight months in 1966, when it joined the north-south and east-west lines into one system. But problems with the signal and control system shut it down and the trains were split into a much more manageable two-line version. The station's mysteries are revealed by Scott Simpson, who details all in Infiltration, "the zine about going places you're not supposed to go.'' "Watch for a darker green tile/brick around the places you'd expect stairs to be,'' Simpson writes in issue No. 5. "There are locked doors there. That's how you get down.'' Simpson managed to get down courtesy of a transit worker who agreed to host a mini-tour, saying he's too chicken to attempt a sneak inspection. And for good reason. Entering private buildings without permission is breaking and entering, a criminal code offence punishable by up to 10 years in jail. The fact that urban explorers say their travels don't involve vandalism or private homes doesn't make it less of a crime, says Toronto police Sgt. Robb Knapper. "Whether it's a private home or a building, it's still breaking and entering,'' says Knapper. Trespassing is a provincial offence that draws a $110 fine in Ontario, he says. So far, Jester says he's never been caught. The closest call came at the Riverview hospital, where he had to dive into a prickly bush to avoid detection by a security truck patrolling the grounds. Still, he doesn't recommend others try sneaking where they shouldn't. "It is dangerous and we realize that we are taking a risk just to see the things that we want to see,'' he says. "We post it on the (Internet) so people can see it and not have to do it.'' Copyright (c) 2003 The Record. All Rights Reserved. bonnie&clyde  Location: 510 & 415 Cleverly disguised as responsible adults  |  Re: A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE <Reply # 1 on 1/30/2012 4:23 AM >   Or you can just read archived threads here. The website kicks ass. One of the best on UE I have come across. Probably enough to keep you busy for the rest of your life. No Poll? The question is not when are we gonna stop, It's who's gonna stop us? paulpa  This member has been banned. See the banlist for more information. Location: Canuckistan Gender: Male Part-time troll  |  Re: A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE <Reply # 2 on 1/30/2012 4:40 PM >   Posted by bonnie&clyde Or you can just read archived threads here. The website kicks ass. One of the best on UE I have come across. Probably enough to keep you busy for the rest of your life. No Poll? or that, I was just trying to make things even more streamlined, turned out to be more complicated, I just hit submit to prevent a good 90 minutes from going to waste. Brind  Location: Kitchener, ON Gender: Male  |  |  Re: A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE <Reply # 3 on 1/30/2012 4:48 PM >   Well, that's a few minutes of my life I'll never get back. Instagram "Adventure is worthwhile in itself." -Amelia Earhart Jonno23  Location: Phoenix, Az, Sector zz9 Plural Z Alpha Gender: Male This space for rent  |  Re: A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE <Reply # 4 on 1/31/2012 7:59 PM >   I have heard of this "Urban Exploration" you speak of. I would love to find out more. Blah Blah Blah. Shut up and open the damn door. "It's ok Officer, I watch a lot of cop shows on tv, so i am practically one of you guys." - sadly, that didn't work. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonno23/ All my photos suck. hydrotherapy  Clever Girl Location: Circle of Least Confusion RPS is inside all of us  |  |  Re: A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE <Reply # 5 on 1/31/2012 8:05 PM >   Posted by paulpa or that, I was just trying to make things even more streamlined, turned out to be more complicated, I just hit submit to prevent a good 90 minutes from going to waste. Stop trying to "improve" this website that works perfectly so long as you're willing to press the damn search button. Fuck. Get down, girl, go 'head, get down. Jonno23  Location: Phoenix, Az, Sector zz9 Plural Z Alpha Gender: Male This space for rent  |  Re: A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE <Reply # 6 on 2/3/2012 4:20 PM >   There's a what button now? Blah Blah Blah. Shut up and open the damn door. "It's ok Officer, I watch a lot of cop shows on tv, so i am practically one of you guys." - sadly, that didn't work. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonno23/ All my photos suck. UER Forum > Archived UE Main > A collection of Academic, Magazine and News Articles on UE (Viewed 856 times) All content and images copyright © 2002-2024 UER.CA and respective creators. Graphical Design by Crossfire. To contact webmaster, or click to email with problems or other questions about this site: UER CONTACT View Terms of Service | View Privacy Policy | Server colocation provided by Beanfield This page was generated for you in 234 milliseconds. Since June 23, 2002, a total of 740822678 pages have been generated.