The factory

Decayed Richmond — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:00:02 +0000

“What did you get?”

We step just inside of a patch of darkness. Jay starts jerking at a yellow handle in his black book bag. It breaks free. He shows me a pair of industrial wire cutters. He grins.

“You know when you’re playing a video game, and you get an item that unlocks everything? That’s what I feel like just happened.”

We step out from underneath the tree, and start making our way back to his apartment. It was too early.

We had been scouring this one building for almost a week. It looked incredible from the outside. It was a factory that had been abandoned for decades. Standing tall in the middle of the busiest intersection in town, its impermeability was taunting.

We don’t do drugs, but I guess I could compare the craving to find out what was inside of there to a starving junkie looking for a fix. But we both knew it was something much deeper than that. It was an innate urge, yes. It’s natural to be fascinated with the unknown. You do some wild things when you’re growing up in a city where you don’t know who you are or where your place in this world is. There’s nothing wrong with that. I guess.

We begin walking down the cracked brick sidewalk. As a kid that used to live in the suburbs, you’re surprised by the amount of light pollution the city spews. The urban ambience illuminates the way. When we get back to Jay’s place, we start gathering our equipment, and wait until midnight.

We get our bikes, and start stumbling down the fire escape of his kitchen. I remember seeing a pair of red children’s shoes hanging out of his neighbor’s broken window, and went to grab my camera. I decided against it, and made a mental note to get a shot of it on the way back.

I get a running start before I hop on, and the seat doesn’t fit me. It didn’t matter. I wouldn’t be there for long. Jay takes lead in front of me, and he keeps looking back at me.

We lock our bikes together, and hide them behind a dumpster two blocks away.
We were both in a trance. We take all the back alleys until we have to cross the main road. No cars were coming. It was strange. Perfect.

We both jog towards the fence. Jay starts working on the barbed wire while I start stacking tires up against a painter’s ladder. I go first.

I can hear my heart pounding inside my head. Jay hands me his bag, and I help him over. No turning back now.

We start taking large gallops over the tall grass. We sprint towards the side door once we hit the flat top.

The door was unlocked, but there was something behind it. I gave it my best effort, and then let Jay try. A swift kick. I heard something break.

“Hello!”

“Is there anyone in here?”

“…”

Its pitch black. My palms sweaty, I start fumbling for my flash light.

There was a bookcase that appeared to be scorched. We walk, cautiously, through row upon row of aisles. The paint was peeling off the walls, and there weren’t the usual signs of makeshift beds left by squatters. We felt privileged to be one of the first to find a way in. Almost everything was intact. It was so strange.

We find a staircase and start climbing it to the top floor. I hear something and my heart drops. Jay’s cell phone.

He answers it. It’s his girlfriend.

“Are you serious, man?”

“Sorry, dude.”

I trip over a loose tile and stumble through the last flight.

“Be careful, the floor is bad.”

There’s a large iron-wrought machine in the middle of the top floor. All four walls are covered in windows. There’s a vent on the side with air roaring through it.

I stand, gawking at how incredible the lighting is. With each step the floor crunches. I look more carefully, and the entire floor in carpeted in stale crackers. The smell was unforgettable. Not in a bad way, though.

This was worth it.

In the far reach of the room, I notice a random spray paint can. I walk over to it. It’s half full. I try the nozzle and it erupts onto my hand. I drop it and it starts fizzing out like a soda. The taste of flat black tar fills the room.

The panes in the windows, melted from decades of neglect, reminded me of painted glass in a cathedral. The tungsten light illuminating a machine that Baby Boomers worked on. I could only imagine how hot this place was during the day, and having to work long shifts with a large oven in the center of the room—only being cooled by a vent that worked off of the barometric differential. It made me appreciate my life.

“We’re overstaying our welcome.”

I walk over to the window while Jay is rummaging through artifacts. My nerves were hypersensitive. Every creak in the building dumped adrenalin into my bloodstream.

It was really strange looking at the urban sprawl from that angle, with each window pane framing a shot. I wanted to absorb that feeling of looking down onto a world that had no idea you existed.

We see blue lights. Gotta go.

I didn’t have to tell Jay anything. We start skidding through the room, crackers clumping together with each footprint.

We take large gulps of stairs. I wonder if this is how the former employees felt when this place caught fire so many years ago.

Paranoia set in.

We burst into the world, and a cool breeze cuts through my shirt. We’re running. Sirens screaming.

We dart through open traffic, and toss our bags into a dumpster. We split up.

A few seconds later I see an ambulance racing past. That can’t be for us. We both start laughing, nervously. Oscillating frequencies went in and out of my mind. It was 3 am, and I was wide awake. “This is what it’s all about,” I thought.

We weren’t afraid of anything anymore.

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Decayed Richmond

Decayed Richmond — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:00:12 +0000

Society views abandoned buildings as a blight to our culture, an eyesore. There are some people, however, that appreciate the decaying beauty in ways the original architects could have never dreamed.

Most of the sites that we visit just, well...happened. We never made plans. The spontaneity, the chaos, is what makes things exciting. Initially, bringing a camera along was meant to give us a reason to be wandering around these places. Its purpose, at that time, was not yet realized. We waste our time exploring life.

The thrill of finding something lost and neglected for decades is incredible. We try to capture that feeling of walking into a room where time has stood still for half a century, its rotting walls reclaimed by nature, local artists, and vandals.

It’s somewhat eerie and depressing seeing remnants from better times and fingerprints on windows caked with dust for years. The metaphor, of feeling neglected and abandoned, resonates in many of our photographs. Many of the kids interested in urban exploration are filled with angst, and look at these spots as an escape. The states of many of the structures we’ve explored reflect the poverty stricken neighborhoods that encapsulate them. Evidence of homelessness and drug abuse is littered throughout nearly every location we’ve found. Those feelings are contrasted against paintings and scrawls checkered throughout the canvas. Not only reclaimed by nature, but many of these forgotten buildings are still appreciated by an underground culture of graffiti artists and photographers.

A subversive mindset is required to intrude into a building that many consider dangerous. That anti-authoritarian attitude translates really well from those that have stemmed from the hardcore/punk scene. One of my first experiences in one of the locations that we’ve documented was from a music video shoot from a local punk band, shot in an abandoned factory. I’ve since revisited it dozens of times. Each time I notice dramatic changes. It’s getting much more saturated. The community that shares the space is growing. It’s saddening to see the memories associated with that structure lost – its history desecrated. But, it’s inspiring to see a new culture being reborn.

As teenagers, we began exploring derelict structures to feed our curiosity. Many nights were filled with scouring haunted houses at two in the morning. That rebellious attitude has matured into a philosophy. We began documenting many of our adventures, and publishing them.

We created a blog on Tumblr in order to compile our photographs. Initially, it was meant to be community based with submitted pictures. We gained an enormous following after only a weekend. Our blog turned into a collaborative project.

Posting our photographs online, we’ve discovered others that are much further along in their journey than we are. Exploring, particularly the locations that we explore, is not a common hobby. Because of the fearlessness it takes to set foot into many of these places, it is certainly a rarity to find someone else that shares that same passion.

Currently, we are in the planning stages of filming a documentary that encompasses Richmond’s decaying structures, graffiti, and the community influenced by this culture. Keep an eye on our website, Decayed Richmond, for updates on the documentary.

What began as a night filled with thrills has spawned into an ideology – to ask questions and to seek what is beyond.