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My sunday evening - went for a climb

few pics from my weekend, and a long read if u want the story

on a whim, me and 4 friends decided to do some urban exploring, the target was a local grain tower called "concrete central", the objective was to explore, and to possibly reach the top

of the 5 of us, 2 of us decided to make the climb to the top, the path up was the "joe cart" seen below. 100+ feet worth of old rusty steel.

Concrete Central closed its doors in the 60's, and in 1966 2 girls fell to their death here while "playing" inside. The response by the city was to cut the steps out of the stairs to keep people from accessing the tops of the grain towers

almost all the stairs were removed from the stairwell inside the building, and the first 30 feet of stairs was removed in each of the 3 Joe carts

our path up was one of the joe carts. we climbed the exterior of the cart till we reached a level that still had the tread risers and railings from the staircase, we then switched to climbing up by using the railings and risers as our path

we shied away from using the stair treads themselves, as the clips on the risers were very well rusted , in some cases the tread risers were perforated with rust around the steps, putting weigh on those steps would have surely resulted in a 40+ foot fall down the center of these industrial dinosaurs

When we reached the low roof, we shimmied across some i beams till we were able to jump the gap and land on the roof

after a quick exploration of the 1st floor of the roof top shanty, we proceeded up the stairs in this section of the building to the very top floor, where i snapped the pics of the surrounding area. quite a view, even if its just buffalo NY

we returned to the first floor of the shanty and poked around some more. we soon realized that the concrete "floor" wasn't really a floor at all, just a meager layer of concrete over some plywood layed across the tops of the silos. the only reinforcements were NOT a lattice of rebar, but just some steel "T's spaced 2 feet apart. the "floor" was literally shifting beneath our feet.

While carefully walking across the floor, i watched as one of the sections shifted down about a 1/4 inch as it let out a few small snaps and pops.

great, concrete so week a mere 170 pounds is all it takes to move a 1000 pound section of concrete

we decided to use the remains of the inside staircase to make our descent. as it was slightly better shielded from the weather all these years. The decision was rather tough, as the first 4 levels down were clearly visible, and there were only 2 or 3 steps left attached anymore, everything else having been torched out long ago.

we slowly started to work our way down, holding the railings and walking down the tread risers on the sides. $ levels down we reach a problem ... theres only ONE floppy railing, one tread riser, and nothing to brace off of on the other side. :eek:

i said a quick prayer to the car gods, grabbed the railing, put both feet on the one riser, and let my feet slide down the riser. a hot step around the railing where its attached the riser 1/2 way down and keep on sliding. the one though running through my mind is how and WHERE im going to bail to if this railing gives ... turns out there weren't many options, as i realize that if i land hard on the next landing the concrete will most likely fail. and so will the railing just past it ... ugh

some skill, some luck, all adrenalin, and some cool pictures to boot:)

view from the parking area
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view from the path
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the joe carts, used for moving the grain to and from ships
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view from the low roof, 100+ feet up, reached by climbing up stairs w/ rusted treads
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Cool pics, sounds like a fun adventure. :cool:
 
far end roof, opposite from downtown buffalo

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view down the backside of the building from near the top of the joe cart

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more complete view looking at the building from the parking area

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top of the joe cart, looking at downtown

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and heres the top of the silos, this is the floor below the top "shanty section" and runs the full length of the building

as you can see, the floor isnt doing to well, and its realy hard to judge if your standing on top of one of the small steel beams in the floor, if your on top of one of the silo walls, or if your standing over thin air

so we walked on the conveyor belts, hoping if the concrete gave the conveyor belt would save us ... but in all honesty it was pretty dry rotted ... we were just hoping any bad floor had strong conveyor belt over it, lol

PICT1995.jpg
 
the top of the "shanty" looking down all 4 floors of it, along with some of the
holes in the floor down there.

if yuo look to the upper right youll see "CJM" spraypainted on the beam,
behind that over the machinery back there is where the roof access holes
are, right over that slopped section of the machinery ... failure while climbing
onto the top roff would resulting in falling the entire length of this pic (50 feet is the best i can figure)

pano-shanty.jpg


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the other 3 chilling at the botom of the joe cart, sorry for the blur

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roof on the backside by the joecarts .. one way then the other

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very top floor, some of the equipment

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out the front (parking lot side)

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remains of one of the electric motors on the top floor

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top of the silos

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top of the silos opposite from downtown - notice the curve to the floor, got sag anyone ?

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Pat getting ready to jump down from one landing to the next on the return-to-earth

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