There's no such thing as Terrorism™ in Canada.

Only in Canada could 7 young men with backpacks jump a fence simultaneously into/out of one of the tallest construction sites in the entire city in a major traffic intersection without anyone even raising an eyebrow. Had this happened in the US, there would have been some ridiculously disproportionate response most likely involving the Department of Homeland Security. It really is kind of refreshing to be in a city/country that isn't completely paralyzed by fear and obsession over safety.

After walking the perimeter we found the site largely unwatched save for a single guard hanging out in a booth around the back side of the building. Up and over the fence we went, making our way into the building and starting on our way to the top. It ended up being a pretty brutal 60 stories of stairs with no functional elevator. At the top we were rewarded with a nice view of the city skyline, cold winds, and a boom crane for some of the more daring to play around on top of. After hanging around on the roof for a while, we eventually cooled down from our climb and actually started getting cold. We packed up and made our way back down, enjoying the graffiti scrawled on the stairway walls by the construction workers that called out the management for bad judgment calls on the worksite.

Of course this would not be enough for one night, so we decided to attempt to see the one abandoned metro station the city of Toronto had to offer. We had heard from locals that the station was now impossible to access because of new security cameras that had been installed to watch the tunnels that lead to it. It wasn't the first time we'd heard this sort of thing about a location, only to discover that all it would take is a bit of effort and determination to make it happen. We didn't come to Canada to give up so easily so after waiting for the appropriate timing between trains, we booked it down the tunnel towards our destination. This would be the first time in active train tunnels for a a few in the group, but for myself and a couple of others, it was actually quite reminiscent of the NY subway system. The layout of the tracks and electrified 3rd rail is stunningly similar as are the tunnel construction methods in the part of the system we were visiting.

In fact, one might confuse the abandoned station itself for a NYC subway station if you weren't familiar with the real thing. This particular station has been used countless times in film and TV productions as a stand in for a NYC subway station. Apparently it's often cheaper and easier to secure permits for filming in this station than it is to shut down an active station in NYC. After we finished having our way with the station photographically, we all waited behind a door to the active station above, timing our exit with an incoming train so that we could get right on it and be on our way. All in all, a good nights work doing something other than being tourists.

Willy's Peak

Some of you may have noticed the lack of updates around here, but rest assured it is not for lack of motivation, but rather from an excess. I've been so busy running around and shooting the past few months that I've hardly had a moment to sit down and look through my images. Now that the weather is winding down a bit, you'll be seeing just what I've been up to.

To start it off we'll take a visit to what was (at the time of my visit) the tallest building in Brooklyn. The Williamsburg Savings Bank:


I had just gotten back from a ridiculous trip (that you'll hear about in due time) when I got a message about a secret party on the abandoned observation deck of old Willy. I was feeling a little under the weather and not quite up for it, but I figured this might be my only chance to see it before it becomes part of someones condo. I chugged some Nyquil, packed my camera and headed out.

Upon arriving, I discovered that apparently the party had been kept a little too secret and wasn't quite as lively as it should have been. That was fine with me as I was there with ulterior motives. The roof deck was definitely neat to see, but that wore off pretty quickly and I headed off in search of the real grand prize, the gilded copper dome at the summit.

I rounded up a couple intrepid friends and we made our way upwards. Once into the mechanical rooms, it's only a few ladders up to the top of the AC units. After navigating a few I-beams, you make your way to a ladder that takes you up into the highest catwalk level of the dome. It turns out, the dome is actually made of some relatively thin flaps of metal that are attached like ladder rungs between huge ribs that are all attached to a central smokestack for the building.

Upon reaching the catwalk, I was fairly content with having reached the top until someone noticed another set of stairs that seemingly terminated at a dead end with the smokestack at the top of the dome. Some less curious folk might ignore such a thing, but surely we could not. We climbed up the ladder and through the slats in the dome we could see that there was actually a small platform on the exterior of the dome that surrounded the smokestack! One of the slimmer in our group went up first and said it was fine to come up. I didn't quite fit through the opening he had gone through, so I moved one opening further down the dome that was wide enough for my shoulders and awkwardly started climbing it. I could feel the metal of the slats flex as I pulled myself up through it and wondered if they would be able to support my full weight as I planted my foot on it and leaned forward to get onto the platform around the smokestack. Finally we were there! This was it!

There wasn't alot of room to move around once up there, so we sat and took in the view for a while. It really was quite a perfect night, very little wind, and the skys were so clear that we could practically see the entire city end to end. All in all, a great way to be welcomed back to the city after a long and exhausting week away.

We made our way back down safely and reunited with the hosts of the party and helped clean up a little bit before making our way out of the building.

Sometime in the next week I made it back to the building to go get some daylight shots of things that were too hard to shoot at night. Here you can see the interior of the dome, including the tallest catwalk above:
Here's another shot showing the way out onto the smokestack platform, while obviously not for the timid or faint of heart, it was definitely easier the second time around. The key thing to remember with all of these things, especially when there are ladders and stairs present is that fundamentally these things were built to be climbed by workers.


That's all for now! As always, click on images for larger versions. Time to get back to more editing.