The nature of this activity presents various risks, including both physical danger and the possibility of arrest and punishment. Many, but not all, of the activities associated with urban exploration could be considered trespassing or other violations of local or regional laws."
I know, sounds cool, right? That's what Ben and I are into, and now being in a new city has presented us with the possibilities to proceed into this full force.
It was "welcome week" for freshman and Ben and I decided to explore the campus and find our classes so we weren't mad confused when had to go to class the next day. As we are getting out of our last stop Ben spots Drayton Hall and says something along the lines of "That'd be cool to get on top of." The whole time we'd been discussing exploring and the possibility of side ladders to roofs and such so we both looked over and thought "Hey, well why not?" So we parked our bikes inconspicuously across the street at Sumwalt and went to search out mistakenly unlocked back doors. Mind you this midday in broad daylight, but we found a promising lead behind some generators, and sure-and-behold one of the doors was slightly cracked. For this first visit to the theater Ben had not bought his digital camera yet so we had no way to document, but that's another story.
So we blindly enter the building into a staircase in the back. Through a door we find out we are in the heart of a theater (for stage productions). We make our way through the sides of the isles and around to the stage -at all times checking our backs and stopping for any suspicious noises. It was pretty clear sailing as we made our way behind the stage curtain and the inner workings of the theater backstage. Completely unprepared for how dark it was going to be, Ben and I were making our way using the glow of our cell phones. Our main goal was the roof so we were ultimately looking for stairs. Realizing it was a auditorium Ben and I also knew there had to be entrances to catwalks that would be cool to explore. Back in High School we had combed every inch of our auditorium in the dark up ladders, on catwalks and over the bars suspended right under the roof.
We found our staircase, and at the bottom a stand up poster for a stage production called "By the Skin of Our Teeth". In true urban exploration fashion we nabbed one of the posters and flipped the display around so everything seemed normal. With poster in hand we made our way to the top of the stair case where a door to the roof had been unlocked. "Oh snap! We did it!" So we explored our victory (just a gravel roof, but a moral victory) and that was when we discovered there was an even higher roof to get to adjacent to the one we were on. Of course we had to try for it. Not wanting to look too sketchy, we chucked the poster off the roof so we weren't carrying it on the way down if we encountered any questioning worker. I imagine see a poster being chucked off a roof would be pretty sketchy anyhow.
We began to explore every inch of the theater - the underground dressing rooms, prop closets, backstage areas, catwalks and mechanical rooms until we found the door to the highest catwalk left open. If that wasn't enough, at the end of the catwalk we found a spiral staircase that led to a platform with a small ladder leading to the walking bars below the roof. Barely being able to see much infront of us, we traversed the bars stepping slowly to avoid gaps that could lead to our demise. In the middle of that section we found another ladder, this time leading to the ceiling. I checked it -locked. Well, we were pretty content and decided to head back. I began to get this feeling that I hadn't worked the lock the right way, like maybe there was still a chance it was open. So, we turned back and I checked again and low and behold I jimmied it open. I put the lock in my pocket and pushed the hatch open. Light flooded in, blinding us for a second, but ultimately leading to a jolt in our spirits. We had made it to the highest roof. So we took a look around at Columbia and basked in the glory for awhile before turning back and retracing our steps.
The catch on the way back was that our eyes had adjusted to this extreme brightness of the roof and so back inside we could see absolutely nothing. You could hold your hand an inch away from your face and not even notice it. We were walking the bars blind. But we were smart about it, we gave our selves 5 minutes to recoup and regain perspective before heading on into the darkness.
As we opened the door to the last staircase a door closed at the bottom. Ben and I jumped back into the dark until the noise stopped. At the bottom of the stairs was the poster we had thrown overboard now draped over the stair railing. Who had seen it? Had they seen us? I was worried we were being trapped into taking it and someone would spring on us. but we had come this far and damn it I wanted that poster. We made a break for it - down the steps, grabbing the poster and out the door.
We proudly hung the poster when we got home to Bates West.
Stay Tuned for "The Theater pt. II" our second and far more daring attempt to summit the roof. Coming soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment