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Mar. 30th, 2009 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI went to the gym with my brother, No-LJ-James, on Sunday. It was the first time I've willingly walked into a gymnasium since high school. Well, maybe that's not true, though technically the last one I was in was in a high school; it was just an abandoned one. But anyway, it's the first time I've walked into one with the notion of using it for its intended purpose since my days of academia.
His, er, friend, I think, Lara is a manager there and gave us both freebie passes. I figure that I fuck around and waste at least an hour a day doing nothing useful anyway, so I might as well do it at the gym. I had no idea what I was doing the first time so I just sort of wandered around following James, but I did use an elliptical machine for the first time and that was kind of fun. Then today, after reading about working out online (the first thing I do when I find anything new to be interested in is read all about it online), I went back after work and did half an hour on the elliptical, keeping right around my target heart rate of 150 to 160 the whole time. Not only was it kind of fun, but I think doing aerobic training like that will help a lot in getting more fit for climbing around abandoned hotels and other tall places. Among other motivations. Anyway. It was fun. I think I'll make a habit of it. At least until I get bored of it.
But I promised a pictures post!
Above, you'll see the Hales and Hunter grain elevator. I first discovered its existence by reading the blog of David Kohrman, who, though I've never met him, I think I've learned a non-trivial amount of composition theory from by looking at his pictures. He has some really gorgeous shots of really special places at http://kohrman.blogspot.com/
Anyway, I found a reference, and general idea of location in there and tracked down what I thought was it by combing the area in Google Earth. A couple weekends ago, I was out with friends![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
posicat and nova_wolf to check out the power plant in the area that I've been to before (but still need to go back to again for more pictures). The elevator (which I'd marked on Google Earth as "What's this???") was just five or ten minutes away, so a couple hours before sunset, we made our way over there.
I'm so glad we did. I am simply in awe of the photographic opportunities of this place. This trip was kind of rushed, so I hope you'll forgive the quality of some of these; I fully intend to make a trip down this way just to catch the ruins at dawn and spend three or four hours photographing. I'm in love.
Even before we walked inside I was taken with the place. Its that old, industrial, beautifully functional brickwork that no one seems to construct anymore.
Looking up from the base of the two main buildings toward the bridges that connect them and the old hoppers that cling doggedly to the side of the northerly of the two was vertigo inducing.
The first floor was quite a ruin and in a shambles. There was old machinery on platforms with short ladders that lead up to them. There were fallen finishing bricks from the walls, and debris coating the floor. There were tricky little holes in the floor, waiting to trip you up, and a set of stairs that had been torch-cut and destroyed to keep people from progressing higher in the structure. And everywhere were the myriad hues of rust.
We found a ladder that someone had brought in and propped up on top of one of the machinery platforms; it lead to a small square opening in the first floor ceiling. I tested the wooden rungs and found them solid; never one to refuse such an obvious invitation, I scrambled up and shot a picture of our entrance way. Someone had fastened a wire-rope line and draped it down into the hole to help climbers pull themselves up, but I did without; things like that make me nervous.
The first floor was, if anything, even more littered than the first floor with debris piles that were just waiting for a chance to trip you up. This is problematic since the building contains a great many little holes in the floor, for what I assume were chutes or pipes or something like them. Most of them are not big enough to fall through; just to break your ankle if you trip in them. Most of them.
This trough and chute arrangement that I assume once dispensed grain or seed or some other particulate product of the fields really caught my eye. I must come back with better light, and more time, for so many of these pictures, this one included.
The stairway was not only intact from the second floor on through its terminus at the next-to-top floor, but impressively sturdy. The first floor stairs could only have been cut, 'cause the rest of the I-beam backed flights looked like they could hold three or four of me.
About three floors up, a missing chunk of brick by the top of the stair afforded a few of the hulking concrete cylinders of the silos just to the south. I can only describe the feeling of looking out at them as surreal. To be forty feet in the air and look at something so big, and so foreign to the paradigm that we're used to buildings fitting into made my brain spin. No square edges, no distinguishing lines or shapes, no windows or doors or any of other cues that help your brain make sense of objects on this scale. Just a massive, featureless concrete tube that extends below your feet, above your head, and off to your left further than you can see. It just feels instinctively wrong; like a defiance of the law of gravity. It was so cool.
You can see in this picture that the bottom thirty feet or so of the silos are covered in clinging vines. Coming back when they're lush and green is on my mandatory to-do list this Spring. They must be magnificent. (That'sposicat in the picture with his own camera.)
The elevator is right on a huge railroad yard. The whole time we were exploring, we were accompanied by the sounds of yard engines assembling cars into trains and the occasional startling cacophony of metal on metal when a long chain of cars was moved and the slack in the couplers was pulled taught. Yet another reason to return; railroad pictures!
I stopped to snap this photo most of the way up the building. It's fortunate that the elevator's structural steel is in good shape, because significant portions of the brick walls are gone all over the place. Watch that first step there... (Technical note, I need to reshoot this one so that the flat portion of the brick continues through the bottom left corner of the frame. I think the stack of bricks at the corner is distracting, but I get caught up in symmetry all the time. I love looking at all the pictures I have from here and imagining going back and doing it all better.)
Making it to the top of the stairwell rewarded us with this view, looking out through a wall to the east to one of the railyard entrances. Another picture that could benefit from better lighting.
We were also nearly at a level with the roof of the silo structures to the south. There were ways across to the roof, but I didn't investigate them this trip; we stayed in the central building. Perhaps next time.
The stairs we took ended on this floor. Though there was another floor above us, and stairs to reach it across the way, they were completely trashed. The steps were gone nearly entirely, leaving just the I-beams that they once rested on. At the bottom of those stairs was another gaping hole in the brickwork that would accommodate a falling explorer without blinking. I'd love to get up there, but I think it would be unwise without some kind of safety tether. There was, though, some fantastic machinery and sheet metal work up here, including the bottoms of some hoppers that seemed to start on the top floor. Perhaps there was once machinery that would take grain from the silos and deposit it in the top of this central buiding to work it's way through all the chutes and pipes and hoppers we passed on the way up, mixing and sifting, to be deposited into trucks or train cars at ground level to be trucked away to parts unknown. As always, I wish I knew more about this place and how it worked.
We took a final look to the west before heading back down while we still had remnants of the fast-fading sunlight. A goose or other large bird had perched atop the metal hoppers on the northern building and stood silhouetted against the sky. I just love the brickwork and moss-covered roof in the lower part of this shot; I swear, it looks like a painting. This is another picture I need to reshoot without that cursed pole on the left side of the frame...
So that's about it for the grain silos. As I said, we also visited the coal-burning power plant I've been to before that day, and then on Sunday we went to Indiana for more urban ruins, but I'll get to those another time. It's getting late and I have to work tomorrow. Ick.
Hope you enjoyed!
His, er, friend, I think, Lara is a manager there and gave us both freebie passes. I figure that I fuck around and waste at least an hour a day doing nothing useful anyway, so I might as well do it at the gym. I had no idea what I was doing the first time so I just sort of wandered around following James, but I did use an elliptical machine for the first time and that was kind of fun. Then today, after reading about working out online (the first thing I do when I find anything new to be interested in is read all about it online), I went back after work and did half an hour on the elliptical, keeping right around my target heart rate of 150 to 160 the whole time. Not only was it kind of fun, but I think doing aerobic training like that will help a lot in getting more fit for climbing around abandoned hotels and other tall places. Among other motivations. Anyway. It was fun. I think I'll make a habit of it. At least until I get bored of it.
But I promised a pictures post!
Above, you'll see the Hales and Hunter grain elevator. I first discovered its existence by reading the blog of David Kohrman, who, though I've never met him, I think I've learned a non-trivial amount of composition theory from by looking at his pictures. He has some really gorgeous shots of really special places at http://kohrman.blogspot.com/
Anyway, I found a reference, and general idea of location in there and tracked down what I thought was it by combing the area in Google Earth. A couple weekends ago, I was out with friends
posicat and nova_wolf to check out the power plant in the area that I've been to before (but still need to go back to again for more pictures). The elevator (which I'd marked on Google Earth as "What's this???") was just five or ten minutes away, so a couple hours before sunset, we made our way over there.I'm so glad we did. I am simply in awe of the photographic opportunities of this place. This trip was kind of rushed, so I hope you'll forgive the quality of some of these; I fully intend to make a trip down this way just to catch the ruins at dawn and spend three or four hours photographing. I'm in love.
Even before we walked inside I was taken with the place. Its that old, industrial, beautifully functional brickwork that no one seems to construct anymore.
Looking up from the base of the two main buildings toward the bridges that connect them and the old hoppers that cling doggedly to the side of the northerly of the two was vertigo inducing.
The first floor was quite a ruin and in a shambles. There was old machinery on platforms with short ladders that lead up to them. There were fallen finishing bricks from the walls, and debris coating the floor. There were tricky little holes in the floor, waiting to trip you up, and a set of stairs that had been torch-cut and destroyed to keep people from progressing higher in the structure. And everywhere were the myriad hues of rust.
We found a ladder that someone had brought in and propped up on top of one of the machinery platforms; it lead to a small square opening in the first floor ceiling. I tested the wooden rungs and found them solid; never one to refuse such an obvious invitation, I scrambled up and shot a picture of our entrance way. Someone had fastened a wire-rope line and draped it down into the hole to help climbers pull themselves up, but I did without; things like that make me nervous.
The first floor was, if anything, even more littered than the first floor with debris piles that were just waiting for a chance to trip you up. This is problematic since the building contains a great many little holes in the floor, for what I assume were chutes or pipes or something like them. Most of them are not big enough to fall through; just to break your ankle if you trip in them. Most of them.
This trough and chute arrangement that I assume once dispensed grain or seed or some other particulate product of the fields really caught my eye. I must come back with better light, and more time, for so many of these pictures, this one included.
The stairway was not only intact from the second floor on through its terminus at the next-to-top floor, but impressively sturdy. The first floor stairs could only have been cut, 'cause the rest of the I-beam backed flights looked like they could hold three or four of me.
About three floors up, a missing chunk of brick by the top of the stair afforded a few of the hulking concrete cylinders of the silos just to the south. I can only describe the feeling of looking out at them as surreal. To be forty feet in the air and look at something so big, and so foreign to the paradigm that we're used to buildings fitting into made my brain spin. No square edges, no distinguishing lines or shapes, no windows or doors or any of other cues that help your brain make sense of objects on this scale. Just a massive, featureless concrete tube that extends below your feet, above your head, and off to your left further than you can see. It just feels instinctively wrong; like a defiance of the law of gravity. It was so cool.
You can see in this picture that the bottom thirty feet or so of the silos are covered in clinging vines. Coming back when they're lush and green is on my mandatory to-do list this Spring. They must be magnificent. (That's
posicat in the picture with his own camera.)The elevator is right on a huge railroad yard. The whole time we were exploring, we were accompanied by the sounds of yard engines assembling cars into trains and the occasional startling cacophony of metal on metal when a long chain of cars was moved and the slack in the couplers was pulled taught. Yet another reason to return; railroad pictures!
I stopped to snap this photo most of the way up the building. It's fortunate that the elevator's structural steel is in good shape, because significant portions of the brick walls are gone all over the place. Watch that first step there... (Technical note, I need to reshoot this one so that the flat portion of the brick continues through the bottom left corner of the frame. I think the stack of bricks at the corner is distracting, but I get caught up in symmetry all the time. I love looking at all the pictures I have from here and imagining going back and doing it all better.)
Making it to the top of the stairwell rewarded us with this view, looking out through a wall to the east to one of the railyard entrances. Another picture that could benefit from better lighting.
We were also nearly at a level with the roof of the silo structures to the south. There were ways across to the roof, but I didn't investigate them this trip; we stayed in the central building. Perhaps next time.
The stairs we took ended on this floor. Though there was another floor above us, and stairs to reach it across the way, they were completely trashed. The steps were gone nearly entirely, leaving just the I-beams that they once rested on. At the bottom of those stairs was another gaping hole in the brickwork that would accommodate a falling explorer without blinking. I'd love to get up there, but I think it would be unwise without some kind of safety tether. There was, though, some fantastic machinery and sheet metal work up here, including the bottoms of some hoppers that seemed to start on the top floor. Perhaps there was once machinery that would take grain from the silos and deposit it in the top of this central buiding to work it's way through all the chutes and pipes and hoppers we passed on the way up, mixing and sifting, to be deposited into trucks or train cars at ground level to be trucked away to parts unknown. As always, I wish I knew more about this place and how it worked.
We took a final look to the west before heading back down while we still had remnants of the fast-fading sunlight. A goose or other large bird had perched atop the metal hoppers on the northern building and stood silhouetted against the sky. I just love the brickwork and moss-covered roof in the lower part of this shot; I swear, it looks like a painting. This is another picture I need to reshoot without that cursed pole on the left side of the frame...
So that's about it for the grain silos. As I said, we also visited the coal-burning power plant I've been to before that day, and then on Sunday we went to Indiana for more urban ruins, but I'll get to those another time. It's getting late and I have to work tomorrow. Ick.
Hope you enjoyed!
