"And Midtown Plaza will re-open its doors today at 9 AM today..." were the words I awoke to. I fell asleep the previous night watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics and my television was left on all night while I slept. The reference to Midtown Plaza was enough to trigger my brain to awake me from a deep sleep.

Midtown Plaza was America's first downtown urban mall. It had recently closed down and is soon to be demolished. I've have been wanting to get inside after it has closed, but just haven’t had the time yet to research entry, security measures, etcetera since it just closed to the public two weeks ago. But today was a special day. That is because normally I would already be at work and wouldn’t have heard about this on the news until after it happened. Today however I had a doctor’s appointment this morning and was planning on only working the 2nd half of the day, so I got to sleep in a little bit and just so happened to be awakened by the morning news.

The announcement on the news was that today only they were opening Midtown at 9 AM to hold an auction to auction off what was left in side. Most of the things being auctioned off were things small business could use like garbage cans, tables, chairs, display shelving, etc. This was great news as now I was thinking I could get into Midtown and take some last shots of the long mall corridors and courtyards before it was demolished. So in my half-awake, hung-over state I quickly threw together a light bag of camera gear and headed out.

First though I had to go to my doctor's appointment and luckily Rochester General Hospital was somewhat nearby Midtown Plaza. I was going to RGH because I was actually getting a sonogram to find out if I have two kidneys or not. I’m a healthy 28 year old, but recently my mother informed me that at birth the doctors weren’t sure if I had two kidneys or not. Since I’ve always been healthy, that’s been something that has just fallen through the cracks and was never followed up on. Since I’m getting older and more responsible, I figured I should find out incase I was ever in an accident or something. After finally getting the insurance company to agree to pay for the sonogram for ‘curiosity’ reasons I got to find out for sure today. I am happy to announce that I officially have two functional normal kidneys! What a wonderful day! Okay, back on topic... To Midtown!

So after the sonogram I drove over to Midtown, parked, and walked in the Broad Street entrance, the only entrance they were going to let the public use today. Right inside the doors was a security guard telling some guy that he can’t go down this one side corridor where the auction was not being held. I chuckled to myself as I walked past this area just thinking there HAS to be some way around.

I walked through the auction area quickly and started looking around to find some nice spots to take some ‘last’ photos of the inside of Midtown. I wasn’t planning on any UE photos and was going for the more historical documentary type photos of what I though was going to be strictly limited access of the normal hallways where mall customers would walk. Quickly I found out that the various security guards were primarily staying where they were posted near the entrances to Midtown.

When one of guards wasn’t looking I could duck into an empty retail store of which none of seemed to have their security gates rolled down so I could walk right into the darkness of the vacant store. From inside these darkened stores I could then access that stores ‘back rooms’. The from there I could then get into the interconnecting hallways behind a group of stores and from there I could then get to bigger hallways which I could then get access to mechanical room full of pipes and conduit.

It was great to be able to move from store to store not using the main customer hallways instead using the dark back employee access hallways. In many spots I could hear the auction happening on the other side of a makeshift drywall partition wall erected to keep the auction attendees corralled off in a central courtyard area while I was on the other side in the dark exploring. It was really strange just hearing an auctioneer rambling off 1000 words per minute while I’m walking around in the dark trying not to cut my head open on any low hanging pipes.

One thing that wasn’t cool was not planning on having this full access to the building, so I didn’t even bring a flashlight. Often I was slowly walking in the dark using my cell phone or a camera flash to temporarily see what was ahead of me. Half of my digital pictures were not of anything interesting, but were of walls and dead-end’s that were taken while trying to navigate in the dark.

When this mall closed down there were many internal doors that were just left unlocked. Often when I encountered a locked door, 15 minutes later I would be finding my self on the other side of it by looping around from an another direction. It seems there was always a 2nd way around into most places in there. I was unlocking any internal doors I could find to help out any explorers after me. (You’re on your own for the external access points.)

Sometimes I would come across another explorer. Not the kind like us, but the ones who thought it was ‘neat’ walking around this empty mall, but have never heard of UER, or even the term ‘Urban Exploration’. I probably ran into 10 different “explorers” in the dark bowels of the mall. Some were just like me and were taking pictures/leaving foot prints and getting a last look at Midtown. Others were looking for choice things to get included in the auction, and even a smaller percentage was using this opportunity to steal some last souvenirs from Midtown while it was wide open.

Even though Midtown just closed less than a month before I was in it there was MUCH decay going on. They kept the public parts of the mall in fairly good shape, but it looked like everything else hadn’t been maintained at all since this place was built in the 1960’s.

It was really fun once I hit a dead-end to exit the darkness of the off-limits areas and to blend in with the “auction people” only again to disappear into the dark decaying parts of the mall. There were three main levels to explore and at one point I dashed up a (non-functional) escalator while a security guard’s back was turned.

Some of the more interesting areas I saw were a bank and its vault. I’ve always wanted to see how heavy those safe doors were. And yes, they’re really heavy. I really had to put my body into it to move it. As it was swinging I could just hear the walls crackling in agony. Once I had it moving, that thing wouldn’t stop and I would again have to really put some muscle into it to stop it so it wouldn’t loudly slam closed and give away my position.

In one of the back rooms of a retail store where was a little room up a half-flight of stairs. This was a monitoring room where store security could view the entire retail store via a 2-way mirror. They had this room set up in the corner of the store up near the ceiling for a perfect view of what was going on down below. Inside the retail space there were mirrors everywhere, but to an unsuspecting shoplifter, they would have no idea that behind one of those mirrors was a person watching every move they made.

This was only the 2nd time I’ve been in Midtown. The first time was only to use the post office, so I wasn’t aware how large the mall portion of Midtown actually was. So when not walking the main hallways and sneaking around through dark back hallways, a couple times I would get lost and I would explore an interesting looking area only to find out that I had previously walked through there 20 minutes before. Once I started seeing the same areas, I would take that as my cue to move on to another floor.

At one point back in some mech/service area I was creeping up to a doorway, but froze when I heard from the other side of the wall a security guard talking to another guard about not letting any people back in this part. I tried to tip toe back out of there but there were small pebbles crunching under my feet. They heard me and then I heard their movement going to check out the noise they heard. I quickly ducked around a corner before they could see me and then went out to blend in with the auction. Then I simply just ducked back through a different access hallway around where security was hanging out.

Unfortunately I could only explore for an hour or so because I had to get to work and I was getting voicemails and texts about IT things going bad at work without me there, so unfortunately I had to leave. I really regret not spending as much time as I would have liked to, not having a flashlight, and not getting better photos. Only ff I had known about this opportunity in advance, I would have hung out there all day and maybe would have tried hiding out in a dark storage room until everyone left for the night, but it was what it was and I had to go to work after being all sweating from UE’ing and still being all sticky from the sonogram jelly.

Walking out I smiled as I looked down the hallway the security guard was still not letting any people to walk down as I knew I had been back there earlier. On my way back to my car I found out I had a parking ticket, not for illegal parking, but for not displaying my new registration sticker which was my glove box. WTF seriously? I got a parking ticket for legal parking. *sigh* At least I have two kidneys!