Unprepared for NY

For the first big trip of the year, Sergio, Belina and I decided to skip the 13 hour drive and fly up to New York for a few days. As soon as we landed, we grabbed the shitty Kia Rio rental car (no arm rest or cruise control!), and headed straight to pick up Ron somewhere in the streets of Queens to head to an abandoned hospital that none of us had previously been to. After a short, traffic-filled drive, we park and head in. First thing we notice when we walk in are the lights that are on in the bottom floor, construction drop lights hanging throughout. We decide to head to the top and work our way down. After a quick stop on the roof to get a few snaps for Snapchat, we go down a level and start looking for anything we can shoot. There wasn’t a ton of stuff left behind, but we were able to stay busy there until the sun went down. It worked out pretty good for the first quick stop on day one.

lighted hall desk light bed chair high chair patient room phone paperwork doors

After dropping Ron off at home and grabbing some tasty burgers from Petey’s, we went back to the hotel to rest up for Friday. We got up early and returned to a location we explored before, but we wanted to find a few new specific areas (most of which we couldn’t find/access). It turned out to be quite the adventure trying to navigate dark, underground tunnels and it quickly became evident that we came to this place completely unprepared. After doing our best to keep our socks dry (mostly unsuccessfully), we enter a group of buildings we’ve never been to, all connected by these tunnels. We didn’t get many photos here, but it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We had to get creative in building our own bridge down what seemed like never-ending dark tunnels, only to find out that we went the wrong way! Now we needed to backtrack through that long tunnel filled with water and actually go the opposite way down an equally long, dark, and water-filled tunnel to the other side of the complex. This was a much more tiring process than we anticipated! Eventually we made it, and found out we’re still not in the correct building we were looking for. Aside from having to go back down the same tunnel again, the place we’re looking for isn’t even connected to these tunnels! We then make the brilliant decision to forgo the bridge idea that’s kept us mostly dry, and try to find bags to cover our shoes. One of the first rooms we find is full of big, very thin plastic bags of adult (like XXXL) size diapers. I joked about putting the diapers on our shoes and Belina came up with the idea to just use the bags that the diapers are in, so we each grab two, pull the diapers out, stuff our feet in the bags, and try to find/think of a way to keep them on. First thing I see is a telephone cord, so I pull that out of the floor and tie it around a leg. It was long enough to tie both of mine and still leave enough room in the middle so i can walk (basically like a prisoner in shackles). So, back down the stairs and into the water we go. I went first and realized after a few steps that this was a terrible idea, and my right foot was already filling with disgusting tunnel water. I basically just started running and got to the dry area pretty fast, but both feet were completely soaked. Actually, I’m pretty sure all six of our feet were drenched by then. We make our way back to an alternate exit and walk back to the car to regroup and to go grab some lunch nearby. Turned out to be perfect timing, because security drove by just as we were putting our stuff in the trunk.

After finding out exactly where we needed to go, we finished eating and drove back around the other buildings. There were a few people walking around and the security SUV was sitting right where we needed to go. We decided to go to another place nearby and see as much as we could before it got dark on us. The next place was definitely easier. When we got there, there were people walking their dogs all over the property, so we just parked and started walking around. The first couple buildings didn’t yield much in the way of photographs, but the last ones were decent. We were actually about to leave and we ended up stopping and going in one last building. We ran into some kids there who said there was a building with a morgue and other stuff in it, but (of course) we missed it because the sun was starting to go down. We also had to wake up at 5am to go to Philly on Saturday…which I’ll post about next.

top level doors tunnels caving in sky light exposed messy sink stairs hallway pipeline crumbling bed rusty

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