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 | "... the best in the class."
entry by Path Walker
3/28/2006 10:40 PM
| The following is the research paper I had to write for my admittedly embarassing College Comp class. The prof loved it, so much so that she went on to tell me all about her UE trip to a local sulphur springs location and insist that I visit said location as soon as possible because either a specific building or an area had been bought up by "a Korean" and he was likely going to tear it all down. She told me the paper was "the best in the class" and that she had never given a rough draft a grade of an A- before my paper. Me likee praise, yes'm I do.
Anyway, for your reading enjoyment, and in lieu of a real journal entry, here it is:
Urban Exploration
Preserving Forgotten History
History is a fleeting thing; indeed, it is always in the past. All too often, the remnants of history end up forgotten and untended alongside the roads of yesterday with no one to care for or about them. The hollowed buildings of days gone by are as much a part of the world around us as they are a part of our collective human history; and yet, for so many no effort is made at preserving them for future generations to experience first-hand. If it were not for the hobby of Urban Exploration, most of these places would be truly forgotten. Urban Exploration is an effective means of historic preservation.
History, like people, dies every day. Little by little, pieces both large and small perish from the minds of society and civilization, passed over by the masses. A cottage in a forgotten mining town in the Adirondacks, a tuberculosis sanatorium in Barkersville, the remnants of a lock on the Mohawk river near an abandoned section of the original Route 5 – all are forgotten, all are crumbling to dust, without a care from a State Historic Preservation Office that claims it, “…helps communities identify, evaluate, preserve, and revitalize their historic, archeological, and cultural resources.” (NYSHPO)
One Urban Explorer states: “Urban Exploration is really a blanket term for numerous activities including buildering, tunneling, draining, infiltration, and industrial archaeology…. Urban Exploration as we understand it today seems to be a kind of fusion of history, sport, art, and the raw satisfaction of natural curiosity.” (Agent K) It is this natural curiosity in the hearts of Urban Explorers that sets us off in search of forgotten treasures, spending countless hours driving back-country roads, poring over historic archives and newspapers, and researching online to discover the kernels of the past that most of the world has left behind.
The reasons for any Explorer’s passion for the hobby are as varied as the Explorers themselves and can be difficult to convey to those outside the hobby. As Drie puts it: “In the absence of the living, there still exists a life. Every abandonment has a heartbeat, a pulse that makes it both unique and alive. Finding that rhythm is one of the purest things I’ve experienced, but explaining why I’d want to can be something else entirely.” Others, such as uem-Tux, at least help to define what it is most Explorers accomplish by saying, “Commonly, explorers take pictures of the places they go, and either keep private collections, or post the pictures on the internet for the perusal of the general public (and other explorers of course).”
This sentiment conveys the credo of Urban Explorers: take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints. Ninjalicious stated, “… explorer photos may also provide some of the only remnants of a place…” which, when considered, is a frightening concept for sites that play a large part in the history of a region, a nation, or the world (53). Ninjalicious goes on to say:
| … abandoned sites provide the best and most interactive museums of industrial archaeology and local history you’ll ever find. Those buildings that haven’t been stripped bare often house incredible old machines or technology we’ve all but forgotten today. And it’s one thing to read about how psychiatric patients were treated, but quite another to find the records of their electroshock therapy sessions and read their reactions and see their drawings on the walls. Whereas in most parts of the city it’s easy to forget that the past ever happened, in abandoned buildings you’re surrounded by the past and can’t help but feel connected to it and a part of it. (88) |
Moreover, Ninjalicious continues, “There’s also something of a moral duty to explore abandoned sites. If you don’t go and appreciate these beautiful places of decay, it’s possible no one will, and that would be a terrible shame.” (89)
Drie echoes his sentiments by stating, “Part of it is in the things you find. Every object tells you a story. Even the plainest things, -sheets [sic] of paper, a forgotten sweater, piles of keys – Make [sic] you question what happened here… You can easily spend hours in an abandonment, sitting perfectly still, reading old records by the light of a flashlight.” Clearly, Urban Explorers are as much investigators as they are historic preservationists.
Some Explorers, myself included, become attached to certain cites. For ‘Dukes, it is the National Lead mine near Tahawus and the accompanying village of Adirondack nearby where Vice President Theodore Roosevelt stayed at the McNaughton Cottage while returning to Washington D.C. from the Adirondack Mountains upon receiving news that President William McKinley had been shot. The cottage still stands, though it likely won’t for much longer. For Homestead, it is the Saratoga County Homestead, originally a tuberculosis sanatorium and later a school and an infirmary. The mark of the American Lung Association remains on the arches over some of the outside doors, though every window, wall, and door within the building have fallen prey to partying teenagers and careless vandals toting spray paint and malicious intentions. For a small group of us, an abandoned concrete structure on the north bank of the Mohawk River between locks 8 and 9 holds a certain mystery. Just a few yards from an original amalgamated concrete span of old Route 5, now grown over since the new Route 5 was laid curving toward Amsterdam from Scotia, the only defining marking of the structure is the enormous 15-7 painted on one of the upper levels. None of us can find any solid information on this building, though some have speculated it could be the remains of a restaurant’s root cellar, a storehouse, or possibly an old barge lock. None of us visit these places once, take pictures, and leave them alone; we go back, again and again, drawn by something we cannot clearly define other than to refer to it as a kind of sorrow-filled affection. As Drie puts it, “You can fall in love with a ruin. I’ve done it, so I know it’s possible.”
In all three of the above cases, you may not have ever known about these locations had I not just told you of them. No doubt that many people watched these places be constructed and passed through or over their locations over the months or years they were in use, but once a location has served its purpose, it gets left behind to rot, forgotten and abandoned by man until an Urban Explorer happens upon it, recognizes its potential, and shares it with the world again. “Some people see a place born into usefulness. Explorers see it leave the world of man.” (Drie)
In early 2005, I was contacted through an Urban Exploration website by another Explorer who wished to interview me regarding my views on our hobby and the issue of historic preservation. I defined historic preservation as, “an all-out effort to ensure that a location or object is kept as intact as possible for future generations to appreciate, enjoy, and learn from.” Unfortunately, there is far too little left of most of these sites to preserve, and that is why our hobby is so vitally important. If it were not for our pictures, our explorations, our inquisitiveness and our adventures, these locations would truly be forgotten forever. As I told Master Kayin in the email interview, “… abandoned places are destined for some sort of destruction… that’s where UEr’s come in, documenting these sites in some manner before they’re gone for good.” I continued by telling Master Kayin, “… it’s all about documenting the site, at least what we can, in an attempt to capture the essence of the location and share it with others, or even just to get good [pictures] so that we can try and figure out just what the place really is… I guess you might say that, from my own experiences, Urban Explorers are the last-ditch effort at preserving sites that everyone else has turned their back on.” ( * Path Walker)
On the New York State Historic Preservation Office Message web page, the organization states that, “The SHPO works with governments, the public, and educational and not-for-profit organizations to raise historic preservation awareness, to instill in New Yorkers a sense of pride in the state’s unique history and to encourage heritage tourism and community revitalization.” (NYSHPO) For the village of Adirondack and the National Lead mine, the Saratoga County Homestead, and the unknown concrete structure on the Mohawk, as well as for countless other locations across New York, the United States, and around the world, such efforts clearly are not enough. This is why there are Urban Explorers, and why there will always be Urban Explorers. Without us, more history would be lost than is learned.
Works Cited
Agent K. “A New Definition of UE.” Infiltration.org 12 Aug 2004. 5 Mar 2006.
<http://infiltratio...chives/000212.html>
Drie. “An Attempt At Explaining Exploration to the Public.” Online posting. 25 Aug
2004. <http://www.uer.ca/...asp?threadid=12476>
New York State Historic Preservation Office Message. New York State Historic
Preservation Office. 13 Mar 2006. <http://www.nyspark...shpo/moreshpo.html>
Ninjalicious. Access All Areas: a user’s guide to the art of urban exploration. Toronto: Infilpress, 2005.
uem-Tux. “UE FAQ (seeking submissions).” Online posting. 24 July 2003
<http://www.uer.ca/...urrpage=1&pp#post0>
* Path Walker “Re: Interview Questions.” E-mail to Master Kayin. 21 Feb 2005.
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