Malcolm and the forgotten building
Malcolm is a pretty sweet guy from New York , he does parkour so he is pretty apt at getting into hard to reach places. He was my roomie last year and has since moved back to NY. Don’t let the bad ass picture to the right fool you, Malcolm is a kind sweetheart but he is always up for crazy adventures. During his visit we decided to go urban exploring. We came across this old abandoned building in Griffintown, beside the railway tracks and the st-Lawrence river.
The first challenge was to get inside the building. All the windows and doors on the first floor were boarded up. We found a way in but it was quite risky and complicated. If you take a closer look, you can see that there is a rope attached to the fire escape of the building. That rope isn’t what it seems, it’s a slippery cable. We had 20 feet to climb to get to the top. Because we’re ridiculous, we gave it a shot. Malcolm climbed up first by scaling the wall with the cable. I didn’t have enough arm strength to do that so I took off my shoes and climbed the cable using my toes. Like this. Bare in mind if we fell, we would’ve fallen onto plenty broken glass, rusty nails, sharp rocks and who-knows-what. I barely made it up, but I thank all the hypothetical gods and the strength that I developed over the summer on tour with my circus troupe .
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We finally reached the top and were greeted with a spectacular view of the old port and industrial area.
Well worth the effort.
We didn’t know if anyone was squatting the place, it would have been awkward during the photo-shoot, when Malcolm was butt-naked, if we got chased away by someone living there. We continued exploring the depths of the building. The top floor was littered in graffiti, old and new, you could tell because much of it was worn away. There was a broken pipe and I guess no one bothered to shut off the water to the building so half of the top floor was covered in water. The second floor had a crazy control room with old switches and other odd devices. The lowest floor was kinda neat, it was all brick and it looked like an old warehouse. My first thought upon seeing it was that it would make a great art studio. I wish I took more pictures of the inside the building because it was so cool! I have an stubborn aversion against using flash and miss out on some photo opportunities. I’ll be sure to go back and take more photos. Not using flash isn’t all bad because you need to come up with creative ways to light your subject… like FIRE.
It was a pretty Hot photo-shoot. (Pun intended)
We soon had to say farewell to the colourful ruins and attempt to get down. The attempt was only mildly successful.
Malcolm went down first. He lowered himself onto the cable. He was swinging back and forth and since it wasn’t well attached, it unhooked and he fell… This is about 20 feet high… Luckily it unhooked while he was half way down. Falling only 10 feet, he ended up scratching his arm on one of the various sketchy sharp objects on the ground… Thankfully using his cat-like reflexes to land on his feet, he fell backwards with my backpack (containing my nice camera) to cushion his landing. What’s important is that he’s mostly okay. Having to climb down 20 feet, with no cable and an injured friend, I’m freaking out a little. My first reaction to danger is to laugh my ass off. “Malcolm, I’m scared BAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA, no really, I don’t think I can get down BAHAHAHAHAHAHA, What the hell I’m I going to do AHAHAHA….” Last time I got so hysterical was when I got hit by a car. The discourse was similar: “AHAAHAH I can’t walk BAHAHAHAHA This is ridiculous, I just got hit by a car BAHAHAHAHA My leg hurts AHAHAHAH…” At this point there is no turning back. The only other option was to call the police and ask them to get me down. I would have to explain the nude pictures on my camera, why I had torches and gasoline, and why I was stuck on top of a building at 3 am. So Malcolm passes me the cable with which I tie a secure knot. I take off my shoes because I can’t climb with out my toes. If I fall, I fall 20 feet, barefoot, onto sharp objects. With all my courage, I lower myself down and make it out just fine, with my camera in tact!
Somehow, this window skipped both our eyes. It was on the second floor, easily accessible by a stair case beside the building. We both felt pretty dumb scaling the building when we could have simply hopped through the window.
All in all I had a great night, got great pictures and we didn’t die or seriously get hurt, that’s always a bonus.