Urban exploration

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Urban exploration, urbex or UE, is the examination of the normally unseen or off-limits parts of human civilization. Urban exploration is also commonly referred to as infiltration, although some people consider infiltration to be more closely associated with the exploration of active or inhabited sites. In the USA, it may also be referred to as "draining" (when exploring drains) "urban spelunking", and "urban caving", "vadding", or "roof and tunnel hacking".

Targets of exploration

Urban explorers often attempt some or all of these subsets of urban exploration.

Abandonments

Ventures into abandoned structures are perhaps the most common example of urban exploration. Abandoned sites are generally entered first by locals, and often sport large amounts of graffiti and other vandalism. Explorers face various risks in abandoned structures including collapsing roofs and floors, broken glass, guard dogs, the presence of chemicals, other harmful substances, most notably, asbestos, and sometimes motion detectors. Some explorers wear respirators to protect their airways.

Exploration targets vary from one country to another, but some of the more popular or high-profile abandonments include grain elevators, missile silos, hospitals, asylums, and sanatoriums.

Most, if not all explorers of abandonments find the decay of uninhabited spaces to be beautiful; many of these explorers are also photographers. Some abandonments are heavily guarded with motion sensors and active security. Others are more easily accessible and carry less risk of discovery. Abandonments are also popular among history buffs, 'urban archaeologists,' 'ghosthunters' and fans of graffiti art.

Active buildings

Another aspect of urban exploration is the practice of exploring active or in use buildings. This includes seeing secured or "member-only" areas, mechanical rooms, roofs, elevator rooms, and other normally unseen parts of such buildings. The term 'infiltration' is often associated with the exploration of active structures.

Catacombs

Catacombs such as those found in Paris, Rome and Naples are targets for many urban explorers. The catacombs under Paris, for instance, have been considered the 'Holy Grail' by some due to their extensive nature.

Sewers and storm drains

Entry into storm drains, or draining, is another common form of UE. Groups devoted to the task have arisen, such as the Cave Clan in Australia. Draining has a specialized set of guidelines, the foremost of which is "When it rains, no drains."

A small subset of explorers enter sanitary sewers. Sometimes they are the only connection to caves or other subterranean feature. Sewers are among the most dangerous locations to explore.

Transit tunnels

The subset of urban exploration deals with exploring active and abandoned subway and underground railway tunnels and bores. Since these are in major cities, they carry stiff penalties if one should be caught while trespassing in these, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks. As a result, this type of exploration is rarely publicised. Although they exist worldwide, those who partake in this often reside near New York City, Toronto, London, Sydney and Moscow, along with many other major cities throughout the world.

Utility tunnels

Universities and other large institutions, such as hospitals, often distribute steam for heating buildings from a central heating plant. These steam ducts are generally run through utility tunnels, which are often accessible solely for the purposes of maintenance. Many of these steam tunnels, such as those on college campuses, often also have a tradition of exploration by students. This was once called vadding at MIT, though students there now refer to it as roof and tunnel hacking.

Steam tunnels in general have been getting more secure in recent years, due to their use for carrying network backbones and perceived risk of their use in terrorist activities, safety and liability.

Some steam tunnels have dirt floors, no lighting and can have temperatures upwards of 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46° C). Others have concrete floors, bright light, and can even be quite nice and feature a cool temperature. Most steam tunnels have large intake fans to bring in fresh air, and push all of the hot air out the back.

Ethics

Most urban explorers understand the risks that they face if caught while trespassing or breaking and entering. The crime is generally seen as a means to an end, however, rather than being the focal point of the hobby. There are some urban explorers that tend to stick to a basic set of "ethical practices" out of respect for the locations that they visit, as well as for any other explorers who may want to visit later. The hobby, however, is still ultimately an unstructured one, and there are rarely two explorers who share the same views on ethics. As such, there are many exceptions to these "practices".

To some, the idea behind these "ethical practices" is to leave buildings in the same state that they were in before they were visited. The common, but not always entirely accurate catchphrase for this ethical standpoint is the Sierra Club's motto: "take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints." Some try and adhere to this motto which frowns heavily upon theft, vandalism, tagging, graffiti, and any other crime except for trespassing.

Some explorers, though, remove items from abandoned sites to preserve them or to keep as souvenirs. More often than not, these explorers save these items from further decay or destruction when a location has become a target of vandalism or is being demolished.

Another counterpoint to the "leave no trace" ethic is tagging. Graffiti in drains is sometimes condoned or encouraged as long as speleothems and other features aren't damaged. Drainers may use it to indicate how far down the drain a given explorer has been. Similarly, tags may be left in very inaccessible places such as inside false ceilings, at the tops of elevator shafts, and so on.

Some locations contain a small area reserved for leaving tags, known as a guest book. These vary from actual books to blackboards to pieces of scrap metal or wood, or even the dust on an old piece of machinery. Rarely, employee guestbooks will be found, made before the business in question closed. Tags, especially those left in guest books, are sometimes referred to as "sign-ins", and the process of leaving them is "signing in". In marked contrast to the values of mainstream U.S. urban graffiti, tags are generally made to be unobtrusive, being written in conventional or slightly enlarged handwriting with pens or markers rather than larger markings made with paint.

As with many other cases of ethical principles, it is primairly up to the individual to make their own decisions based on their viewpoints and their current situation.

Popularity

West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia. It offers tours to the public.

The rise in the popularity of urban exploration can be attributed to its increased media attention. Recent television shows, such as "Urban Explorers" on the Discovery Channel, MTV's Fear, and the The Atlantic Paranormal Society have packaged the hobby for a popular audience; interviews, such as on "New Morning" on the Hallmark Channel, look more closely at the everyday aspects of the activity . Talks and exhibits on urban exploration have appeared at the 5th and 6th Hackers on Planet Earth Conference, complementing numerous newspaper articles and interviews. With the advent rise in the relative popularity of the hobby due to this increased focus, there has been increasing discussion on whether the extra attention has been benefical to urban exploration as a whole .

The growing popularity of the activity has resulted not just in increased attention from explorers, but also from vandals and law enforcement. The illicit aspects of urban exploring, which may include trespassing and breaking and entering, have brought along with them critical articles in mainstream newspapers. In one recent article , web-postings and photographs from the web-site Urban Exploration Resource were cited as evidence that explorers were trespassing in a closed prison in Northern Virginia. Users had posted specific details on entry points and how "easy" it was to gain entry to the disused facility .

In that regard, some explorers have become wary of posting information and photographs on UE-related websites for fear of being prosecuted for trespassing. Two popular web-sites, Urban Exploration Resource and Deggi5, have been locked in argument about the structure of urban exploration web-sites. UER has an open forum and a database of abandonments and active "infiltrations", while Deggi5's forum is open only to those that the moderators know personally. Additionally, arguments focus on whether online listings of explorable structures undermine the "underground" aspect of urban exploration.

Along with the rise in the popularity of urban exploring, numerous events have been hosted throughout the world. These organized meetings have included campouts, barbeques, day-long explorations, and tours of active and abandoned sites. While most of these are illegal in the sense that they involve trespassing or breaking and entering, a handful of meets, such as a recent event held at the West Virginia State Penitentiary, involve tours or lock-ins. Others include UE-related gatherings, such as a meet held by an urban explorer who calls himself Shiroi in which stunts were performed in an abandoned structure . This has received mixed criticism from the urban exploration community.

In the media

Books

Many urban exploration books are available, including:

Ninjalicious (2005). Access All Areas: A user's guide to the art of urban exploration. PO Box 13, Station E, Toronto, ON M6H 4E1 Canada: Infilpress. ISBN 0-9737787-0-9
Wand, Eku and Arnold, Dietmar (2000). Berlin im Untergrund: Potsdamer Platz. Eku interactive e.K., Berlin, Germany. ISBN 3-935709-02-1
Deyo, L.B. and Leibowitz, David "Lefty". Invisible Frontier: Exploring the tunnels, ruins & rooftops of hidden New York. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 609809318
Solis, Julia. New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-95013-9
The Urban Adventure Handbook. Ten Speed Press.

The following two photography books by Chilean-born, New York–based photographer and documentarian Camilo José Vergara are not explicitly about urban exploration, but Mr. Vergara uses many of the same techniques as urban explorers to gain access to the abandoned buildings which he photographs to document their decay.

Camilo José Vergara. "American Ruins". Monacelli. ISBN 1-58093-056-5
Camilo José Vergara. "The New American Ghetto". Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2331-1

Fiction:

Urban explorers (termed "creepers") and their culture are at the core of the thriller Creepers by well-known author David Morrell.

Magazines

5100: A Canadian Urban Exploration magazine focusing mainly on Western Canada.
The Cave Clan Magazine: Australian draining magazine.
Jinx: United States urban exploration magazine.

Movies

Doom Asylum (1987) - A demented coroner inhabits an abandoned mental asylum. When several teenagers trespass on his property, he proceeds to kill them off one by one. Filmed on location at the since-demolished Essex Mountain Sanitorium in New Jersey.
Pray for Rain's "After...", (2006) a supernatural thriller about three urban explorers who get more than they bargain for when they set out to explore the secret world beneath Moscow. It has just been accepted into AFI Fest.

Red Scream Films' "Prison of the Psychotic Damned", (2006) the world's first exploitation style UE film.

Brad Anderson's "Session 9" (2001) is a movie about an asbestos cleaning crew working in an abandoned mental hospital. Tensions rise as the horrific past of the mental institution seems to be coming back.

Phillip Booth's "Death Tunnel" (2005). Set in Waverly Hills TB Sanitarium in Louisville, Kentucky, five college women were locked in the hospital for an initiation stunt. Deep under the hospital is the infamous 'Death Tunnel' which was once used to remove the dead from the grounds of the hospital.

The films Subway and Real Genius both contain characters who live in utility spaces of the sort that are the subject of Urban Exploration, and sequences in which other characters discover these spaces.

Short films and documentaries

David L. Cunningham's documentary short, which documents a research trip he and screenwriter Kevin Miller made in preparation for writing "After...", a supernatural UE thriller about three urban explorers who get more than what they bargain for when they set out to explore the vast secret world under Moscow.

Melody Gilbert's "Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness" (2006), a documentary about some of the world's urban explorers.

Robert Fantinatto's "Echoes of Forgotten Places" (2005), a visual essay on the allure of abandoned buildings and industrial relics.

Television

A 2004 episode of CSI (Down the Drain) involved a person supposedly killed while 'draining'.
A 2006 episode of Law & Order involved urban exploration.
The Discovery Channel filmed and aired a 5-episode TV series with the title "Urban Explorers". The 5 episodes are Buffalo, Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh. Discovery does not sell these episodes, and does not intend to.
A 2006 episode of CSI:Miami (Free Fall) involved 2 Urban Explorers taking artifacts from an abandoned hotel.

References

Digital, Mike. "Whispers from the Past." New Morning. Hallmark Channel. 19 Apr. 2006. 31 July 2006 .
Last NINE. "Infiltration/UER in the news again." Online posting. 27 July 2006. Urban Exploration Resource. 31 July 2006 .
"Re: UE news story on Fox." Online posting. 17 Feb. 2006. Urban Exploration Resource. 31 July 2006 .
Jacks, Jason. "Going in where others broke out." Times Community 26 July 2006. 31 July 2006 .
"Lorton Prison." Online posting. 8 Oct. 2005. Urban Exploration Resource. 31 July 2006 .
Greenburg, Andy. "Caught in their own web." DragonFire 26 July 2006. 31 July 2006 .
Cahal, Sherman. "Have we started pandering to the tourists?" Online posting. 11 May 2006. Abandoned. 31 July 2006 .
"Shiroi Meet Simplified." Online posting. 2 Aug. 2006. Urban Exploration Resource. 3 Aug. 2006 .
"Shiroi Meet '07." Online posting. 21 June 2006. Urban Exploration Resource. 31 July. 2006 .

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