URBAN LEGENDS (CONTINUED)
for months. Rumors were that law enforcement had been monitoring some Web sites after discovering that burglars were scanning them for tips on how to break into buildings. A last-ditch effort at RSVPing to the Central California Urban Explorer Meet in San Luis Obispo (to which I was not invited) spurred enough curiosity for the host, BryGuy, to write me back - to tell me directly that I couldn’t come. BryGuy eventually relented, and said I could possibly come, depending on how I handled myself during a short test run with an established Bay Area explorer named Tunnelbug. Through a catacomb of blown-out rooms covered in spooky graffiti, dirt, and broken glass, we emerge into the building’s grand foyer, a sweeping acres-wide room surrounded by three-story-high glass curtain walls. Pigeons fly through the gauzy light of the dirty windows, their helicopter flutter reverberating through the room. Dramatic shadows from the 30-foot-tall columns cover black puddles of water. The room looks grand and cinematic, a moody backdrop to a big-budget, postapocalyptic thriller. It’s dazzling. At the center is a spiral staircase extending three floors high. The building was built by the Navy between 1944 and 1947, and was used to research formulas for film to photograph equipment for battleships and submarines. It was also a major headquarters for the study and practice of military cryptography, as evidenced by the codebooks and crypto machines haphazardly left behind in piles throughout the second and third floors. The fourth floor held the director’s office. Elaborately decorated with sofas and fancy curtains, it almost looks like a penthouse suite at a five-star hotel. Closed in 1974, the building has been abandoned ever since. When an area is closed and left to sit for decades, it is not only nature that returns - but also the laws of nature. Dry rot, fire damage, razor-sharp rusted nails and unstable earth are constant menaces at most abandoned sites. It is the explorer’s responsibility to avoid death or injury in these areas, to be solely responsible for one’s self. In a modern society so buffered and baby-proofed with guardrails, signs, tour guides, maps, safety lids, safety bars and safety belts, relearning these basic self-reliant survival skills for urban exploration is scary, and doesn’t come easy. But the payoff for most urban explorers is worth it: a freedom to do absolutely anything you want, whenever you want, to whatever you want, if just for a little while.
22 ELL