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UER Forum > UE Main > Exploring sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s). (Viewed 507 times)
The Demon Crab 


Location: Massachusetts
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 37 likes




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Exploring sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s).
< on 1/18/2023 8:19 PM >
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I go to a pretty unique school in terms of architecture. It was built in the 1860s and added on to over the years. The thing that makes the place really unique is the fact that some areas haven't been renovated since they were built. This has resulted in some pretty cool things such as unchanged classrooms from the 1950s that still have the original furniture and even an old slate blackboard. This is exciting in and of itself, but the really interesting stuff deep is below the school. It has an enormous network of sub-basements and tunnels that is completely off-limits to students. There are several areas that have been sealed off and left to rot because they were unsafe. There are plenty of areas that haven't seen light in over seventy years. The lowest accessible area is almost 70 feet underground. This network makes up almost half the square footage of the entire school, and that's not even counting the sealed areas. No one really ever goes down there, not even the maintenance staff. The only reason anyone goes down there is to inspect the pipes and electrical systems.
The school's basement is pretty much a multi-generational time capsule. There are a bunch of inactive coal-powered boilers that date back to the 1890s and can't be easily removed. However, that isn't to say that no old equipment is used. I saw a ton of active electrical boxes from the 1930s-1960s, complete with old fuses and some very questionable fabric wiring.
I found my way into the tunnels a while ago, but only took a camera down there a few days ago. It was really hard to effectively capture the sheer size of the place since so many of the rooms / tunnels are small or narrow. Most of the tunnel network is pitch black and require a flashlight, but there are a few areas with working lights.



This is one of the first rooms I came to. It's really only a storage room for old furniture, but it connects to the larger and more interesting areas.





I spotted this in the back corner of the storage room. This must be absolutely awful to service. It was hard to get a good photo that shows just how much of a mess the wires are, but they practically covered the ceiling in some places. This is the best photo I got.





The further back I went, the more dilapidated the area became. It was hard to believe that this room was in the same facility as the pristine biology classroom I had been in just a few hours prior.





As I traveled closer to the tunnels, I came across a room with this old door. The original lock and key are still in use today.





Once I was done looking around the storage area, I proceeded to the tunnel entrance near the back. This is the most active tunnel, and is one of the last areas that still had working lights. There are plenty of other tunnels that branch off of this one.





Another entrance to the tunnels. I was in a bit of a hurry to get the shot, but ended up with something I'm proud of.

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Here are some of the older electrical systems I came across. All of these are miraculously still in use. It makes me wonder how often they break down. Finding antique replacement parts is not easy, and most of the parts here look original. I guess that there really isn't much that can break. They're more electric than electronic. Electrical systems are far simpler than electronic systems, hence the long term functionality.








Around a quarter of the way into the tunnels, I came across this pressure release valve. I never thought steam could be so loud.





This is the entrance to the inactive depths of the school. Everything back here is for the most part unused. The ceiling gets even lower as you go on. In order to get in, you have to crawl over a mold-covered mattress pad and army crawl a through a cramped, pitch black concrete corridor that is clogged with rusty iron pipes. The cobwebs back there are the worst I've ever seen. I almost got stuck under one of the pipes, and it took me almost fifteen minutes to pull myself to the other side.




The rooms I came across became significantly stranger once I entered the truly inactive areas. This is one of the weirder rooms I came across. The only way in was through the small corridor from the previous image, which is too small to fit the desk through. There used to be a door on the wall behind me (not pictured), but it's all bricked up.





I came across some old graffiti once I reached an area I could stand up straight in.





Here is one of the last rooms I was able to get to. Like everywhere else, this place was pitch black.It's an inactive boiler room full of old tools and bottles. The floor was very uneven, but there was a good three inches of water on the floor in some places. It looks like there used to be a pump there, but it doesn't seem to work anymore.







This was the deepest area I was able to reach. This was a few sub-basements down. It was somehow even smaller than the first crawlspace I went through. I couldn't even army crawl. All I could really do was lay flat on my stomach and slowly inch along. I would have taken more photos, but I barely had space to move around. My back and stomach were touching the ceiling and floor simultaneously. I'm usually pretty good in small spaces, but something about this area in particular really got me nervous. The ceiling was on a very slight downward gradient, there was no space for me to turn around, and to add insult to injury, the floor was covered in stagnant, rusty water. I had to lay down completely flat in the water in order to move forward. It was nasty. The crawlspace eventually got too low for me to move through, which is a shame because I could definitely see another room at the end of the crawlspace. Unfortunately, it was too far away and too dark for me to get a good photo of.






I'm really curious as to what was down there. Like I said before, most of the school's tunnel network is sealed off because it was madly unsafe. I was able to access a few sealed rooms through old crawlspaces, but there are still plenty of areas that there's genuinely no way into without taking a sledgehammer to the walls. Exploring the substructure of my school was incredible. It was honestly like something out of a horror movie. The bulk of this explore was done in pitch darkness. There was truly no light down there, it was pure darkness. I plan to return to the tunnels soon to see what else I can find. There's still so much left to be explored.



[last edit 1/19/2023 12:02 AM by The Demon Crab - edited 1 times]

Kabes 


Location: Where you're not...
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 74 likes


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Re: Exploring creepy sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s).
< Reply # 1 on 1/18/2023 8:44 PM >
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That is very exciting.. Don't get lost. That chair in the middle of a dark room is unsettling. Wonder how it got there and why. Did you end up opening the door with that rusted doorknob?




-Kabes
The Demon Crab 


Location: Massachusetts
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 37 likes




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Re: Exploring creepy sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s).
< Reply # 2 on 1/18/2023 9:05 PM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
Posted by Kabes
That is very exciting.. Don't get lost. That chair in the middle of a dark room is unsettling. Wonder how it got there and why. Did you end up opening the door with that rusted doorknob?


I did open the door. It lead to an active electrical room full of old fuse boxes. It looked like most of the old electrical systems had been gutted and replaced, but the original boxes were still there. It was pretty strange to see old electrical boxes containing modern circuitry.




Roro 


Location: Greece
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Re: Exploring sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s).
< Reply # 3 on 2/1/2023 5:21 PM >
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this is so cool. the experience must have been very satisfying.




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Turd Furgusen 


Location: Charleston, WV
Gender: Male
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I think marijuana is just nature's way of saying high!

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Re: Exploring sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s).
< Reply # 4 on 2/1/2023 5:39 PM >
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This is one of the coolest posts I've seen here in a long long time. Please keep adding to this! I can't wait to see more!




Everyone has a dark side, mines just a little more illuminated.
UER Forum > UE Main > Exploring sealed off rooms, tunnels and sub-basements beneath an active school (1860s - 1970s). (Viewed 507 times)


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