Okay, the blog writing got away from me again. It's not for lack of working, though--I've gotten a lot of artwork and exploring done. Now I've got some catching up to do, since I'm not even in Leipzig anymore--I'm in Dresden, the capitol of Saxony. But I'll try to do this one without a huge amount of detail so I can get on to writing about Dresden. I'm only in this new city for four days, so I gotta work fast!
Well, living in Leipzig and being surrounded by crumbling abandoned buildings was awfully tempting for someone who has previously snuck into an abandoned refugee center. Unfortunately almost all of them were totally bricked up at every door and window. There was a building a block from me that was being worked on by construction guys who occassionally left the front door open, and I got some pictures from that, but no real opportunities. Then I found out about a railway control station just behind the main station that's been abandoned since the early 1990s. The only entrance it described had since been blocked, so I thought there was no way in. Then I went back the next day and started poking around again. There was a single unblocked window on the ground floor. It could be pushed open and squeezed through. I decided I'd go in there before leaving Leipzig, so the day before I caught a bus to Dresden, I went in.
Well, living in Leipzig and being surrounded by crumbling abandoned buildings was awfully tempting for someone who has previously snuck into an abandoned refugee center. Unfortunately almost all of them were totally bricked up at every door and window. There was a building a block from me that was being worked on by construction guys who occassionally left the front door open, and I got some pictures from that, but no real opportunities. Then I found out about a railway control station just behind the main station that's been abandoned since the early 1990s. The only entrance it described had since been blocked, so I thought there was no way in. Then I went back the next day and started poking around again. There was a single unblocked window on the ground floor. It could be pushed open and squeezed through. I decided I'd go in there before leaving Leipzig, so the day before I caught a bus to Dresden, I went in.
I got in through the green window shown above.
The building was situated alongside a road, walking area, and train tracks. There were no fences or barriers--one could walk right up to it without a problem, and people even parked their cars right next to it. Nobody really went up to it often. On top of that, the window to get in looked too narrow for people much bigger than me to get through. And since I could actually close the window behind me, I was sure nobody would come in behind me. I could even lock the window as well since it had a metal latch on the inside, but chose not to. Who knows, I might have needed to make a quick exit for some reason and didn't want a latch keeping me inside.
Sitting on the windowsill, I could look down into a hole in the floor that dropped straight to a basement level. There was a narrow ledge I could stand on. From there I could move to solid floor to the right, after using a knocked-down door as a sort of bridge. Then I had to crawl under some pipes and navigate the thorny brambles that you see in the photo above. It took me a good minute or so to go from the window to a place where I could comfortably walk around. Unlike my last abandoned building adventure where I always felt like I'd bump into someone around every corner and used spy-like motions to peek around corners and down halls, here I knew for sure nobody was coming near me. It was a creepy place, and as I found out, full of potential nasty falls, but it still seemed secure. The creepy thing was hearing people just outside of the building. Because of the caved-in ceiling, the place was basically open air. When people outside the building made noises or talked, I couldn't tell whether the sounds were coming from inside the building or outside. Usually it didn't take me long to determine that they were definitely from outside. From there it was just a matter of exploration. Aside from the big main room being taken over by plant life, there was a creepy-looking stairwell that went up a further two floors to different rooms that I suppose were used for storage or maintenance, a room with a large gas tank, and a hall which seemed to lead to residential rooms and even shower stalls in the bathroom.
Sitting on the windowsill, I could look down into a hole in the floor that dropped straight to a basement level. There was a narrow ledge I could stand on. From there I could move to solid floor to the right, after using a knocked-down door as a sort of bridge. Then I had to crawl under some pipes and navigate the thorny brambles that you see in the photo above. It took me a good minute or so to go from the window to a place where I could comfortably walk around. Unlike my last abandoned building adventure where I always felt like I'd bump into someone around every corner and used spy-like motions to peek around corners and down halls, here I knew for sure nobody was coming near me. It was a creepy place, and as I found out, full of potential nasty falls, but it still seemed secure. The creepy thing was hearing people just outside of the building. Because of the caved-in ceiling, the place was basically open air. When people outside the building made noises or talked, I couldn't tell whether the sounds were coming from inside the building or outside. Usually it didn't take me long to determine that they were definitely from outside. From there it was just a matter of exploration. Aside from the big main room being taken over by plant life, there was a creepy-looking stairwell that went up a further two floors to different rooms that I suppose were used for storage or maintenance, a room with a large gas tank, and a hall which seemed to lead to residential rooms and even shower stalls in the bathroom.
I was in the room with the gas tank when I heard the scream from behind me. I had just been looking up into a window which looked into an upper floor (shown in the photo above), thinking about how scary it'd be if a person appeared in that boarded up window and saw me. Naturally I nearly had a heart attack. Unlike the higher floors of the building, I was no longer in an ideal place to look around, though I could use a hole in the wall to peer into the big open room, the place where people would have to walk through to enter the building. Nobody appeared, so I guessed I was safe. Even so, I remained still for a long time, as if moving would draw the mystery screamer's attention despite the fact that they were obviously outside. It was an angry, roaring kind of scream, not a "help I'm dying" kinda thing. I was safe, so I kept taking pictures. By this point I'd seen the upper floors, so the only part left to see was that residential hallway. There was also the dark tunnel, but I'll talk about that later.
The hallway branched off of the main room, much darker than the rest of the place since there were no windows and no broken in ceiling. There was a sealed door at the far end, where some light was sneaking through. The problem was, I could hear voices coming from one of the residential rooms. Again--couldn't tell if they were coming from outside or if they were in the building with me. There were two or three of them, accompanied by rap coming from a phone speaker or something. Using my mental map of the outside of the building, I knew that, if they were outside, they were under the steel stairs pictured in the first photo of this blog entry. I snuck along the hallway, trying desperately not to make a sound while walking over broken glass, wood, etc. At each room I passed, I peaked in extremely carefully. I did not wanna be seen at all.
Eventually I came to the last room of the hall, and turned. They weren't in the building with me, but I was still close to being seen. They were under those steel stairs like I thought, just outside a shattered window covered by a few boards. A guy in a baseball cap was just getting up from a squatting position, head turning my way as he rose past the window, buckling up his belt. I moved back into the hall and realized he'd been taking a shit. Under those stairs were a bunch of suitcases ripped open with their contents strewn everywhere, exposed to the elements and to his shit. Anyway, I thought he must be in the middle of leaving now, but was quite surprised. They stuck around for a good ten minutes more at least, talking. I didn't want to move or take pictures, I didn't want to draw their attention. I had no idea how friendly they were and they were talking in German too fast for me to catch anything. So I stood at the end of that dark hallway, waiting and taking in my surroundings. I wanted to take pictures, but I could guarantee they would've heard my shutter. I thought I should move further from them, so I went one room back the other way down the hall and walked onto a staircase. In the room with the staircase, it was basically pitch black except for a slit of light coming through a door that had a good hole broken through it. Climbing the staircase a little and looking back, I could see through this hole, and outside to where the people were. I could watch them until they left.
Eventually I came to the last room of the hall, and turned. They weren't in the building with me, but I was still close to being seen. They were under those steel stairs like I thought, just outside a shattered window covered by a few boards. A guy in a baseball cap was just getting up from a squatting position, head turning my way as he rose past the window, buckling up his belt. I moved back into the hall and realized he'd been taking a shit. Under those stairs were a bunch of suitcases ripped open with their contents strewn everywhere, exposed to the elements and to his shit. Anyway, I thought he must be in the middle of leaving now, but was quite surprised. They stuck around for a good ten minutes more at least, talking. I didn't want to move or take pictures, I didn't want to draw their attention. I had no idea how friendly they were and they were talking in German too fast for me to catch anything. So I stood at the end of that dark hallway, waiting and taking in my surroundings. I wanted to take pictures, but I could guarantee they would've heard my shutter. I thought I should move further from them, so I went one room back the other way down the hall and walked onto a staircase. In the room with the staircase, it was basically pitch black except for a slit of light coming through a door that had a good hole broken through it. Climbing the staircase a little and looking back, I could see through this hole, and outside to where the people were. I could watch them until they left.
Then, moving back into the hall, I heard the window I'd used as an entrance swing open. I moved back and stared down at my only exit at the other end of the hall. A second later, a person passed in front of the exit to the hall. They were in the abandoned building too--inbetween me and the only exit. I was seriously wishing I'd latched it shut like my first instinct had told me. My heart was absolutely hammering now, as I heard the person moving around idly. I was hoping against hope that they'd move to one of the upper floors. I probably stood in that dark hallway for five minutes while this went on, knowing how I was backed up against a dead end. If they started coming in my direction, I didn't know what I'd do. I started progressively walking down the hall towards him, ducking into each room off the side as I reached it.
I can't remember quite how it happened, but at one point I changed tack when he looked up in my direction. Instead of hiding (since I was now a fair bit closer to him), I just walked forward with a "hallo." He just returned my greeting and disappeared off to one side where I couldn't see him because of the hallway. I hesitantly came out of the hall into the large room where he was, but he was gone. A minute later I saw him emerge from a broken part of the wall some five feet above the floor, disappear again, and then return to my level. He had booze with him, and had just finished eating a Subway sandwich. He asked in German if I was taking photos, and we talked briefly until he vanished up the stairs again. So, that was my first encounter with another urbex explorer. Totally uneventful, except for that I had been scared out of my mind a few minutes before. By now the people outside the building were gone. I went back to photographing.
I can't remember quite how it happened, but at one point I changed tack when he looked up in my direction. Instead of hiding (since I was now a fair bit closer to him), I just walked forward with a "hallo." He just returned my greeting and disappeared off to one side where I couldn't see him because of the hallway. I hesitantly came out of the hall into the large room where he was, but he was gone. A minute later I saw him emerge from a broken part of the wall some five feet above the floor, disappear again, and then return to my level. He had booze with him, and had just finished eating a Subway sandwich. He asked in German if I was taking photos, and we talked briefly until he vanished up the stairs again. So, that was my first encounter with another urbex explorer. Totally uneventful, except for that I had been scared out of my mind a few minutes before. By now the people outside the building were gone. I went back to photographing.
The stairway. The door on the left leads to the residential hallway, the one on the right leads to the gas tank room. The stairs go up to rooms whose purpose I couldn't guess. Though those upper rooms did feature huge openings that dropped all the way back down to the ground floor (by the building's design, not due to the place falling apart).
There is one more part of the abandoned building I haven't mentioned. Running off from the main room with the collapsed ceiling was a completely dark, unlit tunnel. The entrance was ominous enough, I think:
It led into a small dark room. Going through the doorway labeled "DANGER," I saw that I was on a kind of steel bridge suspended over the basement level. This bridge, in turn, led to another deeper, darker tunnel with a round entrance. I couldn't see a single thing down there; it was pitch black. Even when I used my built-in flash, it didn't help. It was really eerie down there, and though I wanted to explore, it didn't bode well that I literally wouldn't be able to see my hand in front of my face again. What if it led to some kinda hole in the dark that I didn't see? What if I got cornered like I'd been in the hallway, except by a less friendly visitor? So, to get a good look of what was in there, I took some long-exposure photos with my ISO cranked all the way up, trying to awkwardly steady my camera in my lap. I would then go back into the light to examine the photos close up to see if I could use them to determine what was down there. These are the photos I got back:
Even sitting around in my bedroom in Dresden and blogging, I get creeped out looking at these photos. You can clearly see a softly-illuminated ladder far in the back of the tunnel, but what's that behind it? It was there with every photo I took, and it looks quite a lot like the shape of a person to me. I know it wasn't a person, of course--it wouldn't reflect light like that--but it was enough to make me stay away from the tunnel at the time. In addition, because the tunnel actually ran under the train tracks, you could occasionally hear the roar of a passing train echoing out of the tunnel. Super creepy. The tunnel probably served as a way to get workers safely into the track yard between trains, and the ladder went up above ground. I'm sure it comes to a dead end. Maybe if I'd had a flashlight with me I'd have gotten my courage to go down that tunnel, but I'll never know now. Who knows, this place has been abandoned for over 20 years, maybe it'll get torn down soon. Anyway, these haunting images were the last things I took in there. I'd seen every room (except those above the residential rooms, which were blocked by boarded doors), and as much of the tunnel as I wanted. I still wonder why that person wrote the word "DANGER." It was probably because of the drop off the 'bridge' in the following room, but who knows, it may have been something to do with the tunnel.
I got out of the place without incidence and walked back to my Leipzig apartment. Another abandoned building exploration without me getting shanked! A victory. On the way back, I passed a few more abandoned places (impossible to avoid in Leipzig). What was surprising was how accessible they were! Literally two of them had street-level open windows. I could've climbed straight from the sidewalk through those windows and gone for another excursion. But between getting cornered and freaked a good three times in the last place, I thought I'd had enough. Still, it shocks me how many utterly unguarded abandoned places were sitting around in Leipzig.
I got out of the place without incidence and walked back to my Leipzig apartment. Another abandoned building exploration without me getting shanked! A victory. On the way back, I passed a few more abandoned places (impossible to avoid in Leipzig). What was surprising was how accessible they were! Literally two of them had street-level open windows. I could've climbed straight from the sidewalk through those windows and gone for another excursion. But between getting cornered and freaked a good three times in the last place, I thought I'd had enough. Still, it shocks me how many utterly unguarded abandoned places were sitting around in Leipzig.
Aaaaand here's a Leipzig art dump. As you can see, there's a few sketches of abandoned buildings in my area (which I didn't go into). I was gonna write some more about an art area of Leipzig called the Spinnerei (which was AWESOME, by the way), but I'll save it for a later post. I've written more than enough here! Next post will be about Dresden!