Exploring with WebUrbanist

So much to see...so little time. The people at WebUrbanist have done it again, with 'Urban Exploration Tips, Tricks & Guides'.

Especially the link to '30 Websites & Online Forums for Adventurous Urban Explorers' as the title suggests, it is a list of online resources for would-be urban explorers around the world, from urbex forums to photo sites and more, dedicated to abandoned places and vehicles worth exploring.

Gull lightship (from Derelict London)

Too many to list here, my only objection is that there are some dead-links, still heaps to observe and read about. Just do as they suggest and bookmark it.
Always remembering as WebUrbanist put it - 'Urban exploration (also known as ‘building infiltration’) is a risky sport at best and an illegal one at worst. While WebUrbanist can’t endorse breaking the law there is fortunately no law against reporting on it and some forms of urban exploration are fortunately legal, for those interested in exploring this illicit urban sport'.

Out on a limb

Yes, I was one of the 8 million...

Vitaliy on the crane boom

Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov have gained a lot of notoriety with their video this week (posted yesterday on Twisted Sifter).
The video, released on Wednesday February 12, 2014, has already been viewed over 8 million times, in just 2 days. 

The ethereal glow on the low cloud

Vitaliy on the 100th floor

The Two Towers - JinMao Tower (421m) & Shanghai Financial Centre (490m)

The GoPro video shows the duo (who together are OnTheRoofs), climbing the still under-construction Shanghai Tower. Upon its completion in 2014, it will stand approximately 632 metres (2,073 ft) high and will have 121 storeys. Following its topping out on 3 August 2013, it became the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world, surpassed only by the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates.

Vitaliy's feet adding a sense of perceptive

Vadim photographing 'The Bottle Opener' the Shanghai Financial Centre

Looking down the core of the Shanghai Tower

Raskalov says the pair had planned to start their ascent on January 31st, which not coincidentally was the first day of China’s Lunar New Year, a major holiday in China, while the workers were celebrating at home, and the security was less watchful. 

It took them about two hours to get to the 120th floor by foot. At midnight they arrived above the clouds at the roof-top crane. They spent an additional 18 hours on top of the building sleeping and waiting for the cloud to clear. 

From the crane jib

Cloud beginning to wrap round the towers

Vadim on the tip of the crane

While the video documents their ascent, both are keen photographers and took the time to capture some amazing shots of the bustling metropolis below. 

To see the rest, visit their blogs Vadim's and Vitaliy's (the text is in Russian & English).

Needless to say what they did was illegal and dangerous. Even though they said there was little wind, you could still hear it whistling across the camera mic.

Personally I am content to just enjoy the photographs & video - maybe not with my heart in my mouth, but it might be scaling up my throat!

Game over in a grand slam

The abandoned Dunlop-Slazenger Factory in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria is an urban art gallery of graffiti.

The factory is huge, spanning two massive levels in two separate buildings, with a maze of rooms large & small.

Layers of graffiti cover every wall and surface – bright colours on the dull concrete.

Littered throughout the entire building are thousands of empty paint spray-cans in a large variety of colours.

On the upper floor, the holes in the roof create a beautiful light pattern when the sunshine filters through. The material looks like asbestos sheeting, could possibly been damaged in that hailstorm that hit Sydney in April 1999.

I'm glad I went there in October 2011, as the Dunlop-Slazenger buildings have since become the location for the redevelopment of the site as a mixed use development of residential apartments, commercial offices and retail units. So another abandoned building will bite the dust (currently listening to Queen).

Slazenger was founded by brothers Ralph & Albert Slazenger in 1881, manufacturing golf clubs in 1890, Slazenger tennis balls were first used at Wimbledon in 1902. The first Australian factories began in 1922. Slazenger acquired Dunlop in 1959. In 1963 Slazenger started its clothing line and the Panther logo.

In 1909 Dunlop entered the golf market in Birmingham England. The Australian arm began manufacturing sand-shoes in Melbourne in 1924, and the Volley in 1939. It launched the Flying D logo in 1960.

Dunlop-Slazenger sold to BTR (British Tyre & Rubber) in 1985.

Power of the west

'Urban ghosts' site

Trawling through the Net, I came across a site I haven't encountered before Urban ghosts : forgotten places & urban curiosities, it was the words "south fremantle" on the link which sparked my interest.

South Fremantle Power Station

Power station interiors

Industrial buildings haven’t always been as uninspired looking as they are nowdays.  From the Victorian era through to the mid-twentieth century, factories were often grand and ornate, with commanding facades. The looming beauty of the abandoned South Fremantle Power Station is still magnificent decades after its demise. To some abandoned equates to ugly, to others it is ethereal, strange, confronting and compelling. There is something innately sad about buildings that have been neglected and something definitely eerie. South Fremantle is the epitome of this juxtaposition.
Fremantle, in Cockburn Sound, rose as an industrial centre after a lime kiln was established there in 1831.  A railway, abattoir, and skin drying sheds followed and the area grew to handle much of Perth’s heavy industry.
The art deco style South Fremantle Power Station is heritage listed. The coal-fired electric power generating station first fired up in January 1951. It was the second and largest purpose-built power station in Western Australia, employing over 250 workers, but the decline of coal-fired power and the increased demand for residential housing led to its closure in September 1985, and its machinery was stripped away leaving the building shell.
Its four imposing chimneys were demolished and the building has since been gutted by vandals. However, it has some notable architectural features. Tunnels that run below the station but authorities have sealed and blocked them up. The interior is a curious mixture of vast open spaces and seemingly out of place decorative fixtures, dominated by the sweeping grand main staircase and enormous tall windows, while the omnipresent graffiti that has left no surface untouched adds a counter-intuitively pleasing splash of colour to the scene.
Following the privatisation of electricity generation  in Western Australia, Verve Energy became the owners of the building. The site is apparently being considered for an Arts/Cultural Centre with the focus on a redevelopment of the site, but no action has yet taken place.

Abandoned in America

From factories and prisons to offices complexes and hospitals, there are amazing abandonments all over the world; elegant, impressive derelict structures located in the heart of major cities that are decades or even centuries old.

Detroit’s Michigan Central Station

An example of U.S. urban decay is Detroit's abandoned train station, the Michigan Central Station. Most of the interior has fallen victim to 'urban miners' who break in to steal any stone accents, wire and even copper tubing and bricks to sell as scrap. Photos are from SeeDetroit.com

The station was opened in 1913 and closed in 1988. Its future now remains uncertain.

The building has to be at least 17-18 stories high. Its architectural grandeur is still evident (at least in the photo above) the masonry work on the eaves, columns and balustrades.

The interior is massively proportioned, especially here with its high vaulted ceilings, columns and arches. For an idea of size - there's a distant doorway in the centre of the shot. Apparently the upper floors were never used.