SF0 / lamarnza / Urban Exploration 1

25 + 48 points

Urban Exploration 1 by Celestia Ridgemore, Not Here No More, ƟE←¤, Skünk Bandyt, curious george foreman

January 22nd, 2011 5:10 PM

INSTRUCTIONS: Explore an abandoned building or set of abandoned buildings. Sutro baths, Presidio bunkers, etc.

A couple months back, Curious George Foreman took myself, Nola Mei, and a cricket to a place I'd never thought exist so close to civilization.

Back in the early nineties, someone dumped a great deal of industrial trash, concrete, rebar and such, into the bay from the City of Albany. Some say it was the leftovers of the '89 quake, others deny this claim entirely, opting for something less gruesome. (Of course, that story might be total bullshit. Truth is subjective in these outlands.)

In any case, it's ground up buildings that were abandoned, and left to change.

The result was, however, a long peninsula and a roughly circular end to said peninsula, hence, The Bulb.

If you walk down the Ohlone Greenway and take a left when you see the "UBIK, NOW WITH 20% MORE UBIK" tag, go down, over the traintracks and under the freeway, you'll find it.

This bulb has become a haven for anyone who wants a part of it. It's free ground. You can live there, you can hang there, build there, make it yours.

And, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as we talked about conspiracies concerning the Doctor's assassination, we set out to go and delve into the labyrinthine geography of this abandoned, and reclaimed place.

- smaller

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Curious George Foreman with his Maoist hat and Cadence Finch with his hat of many metal bits, the brothers Sherbert.

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Madeline and Chair, with SAFETY HATS.

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One of the first things that we came across was this beautifully pinked tree.

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Impossible to cut out Rasta Legos.

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The sunken 2/3rds of S.U.T.R.O. MK II

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Van Gogh's latest still life: Grass with Rebar

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We crossed a dilapidated bridge moving into the underworld. And, so, it got a little weird.

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The stuff that dreams are made of.

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Remnants.

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An organ that might once have worked.

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Heralding the library, we found this sign.

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Voila! The library! Incredibly sophisticated structure, for what it was. Prompted Cadence and Chair to start going on about making a board game hut.

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We met the Librarillian a few minutes later. He is a kindly, dreadlocked fellow wearing two pairs of pants that very much wishes folk to utilize his library.

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On one of the walls.

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On the ceiling.

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The Librarillian keeps a Ukulele for the musically inclined.

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Cadence hung up a painting he found lying around.

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MLK, perfect for the day we arrived. Prompted discussion about the lawsuit in the '90s, and the military negligence.

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Sometimes this feels like the end of the world, and it feels great.

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Abandoned.

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Ronald Reagan memorial shitter.

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Turning around an old couch.

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For a most beautiful makeover.

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One of the many camps around.

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The sea-witch.

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Rodin and the wisp.

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Easter, the tired giant.

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Kikuchiyo Kuwabatake Sanjuro (I play a total goof in this movie, but at least I got the biggest sword!)

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The pals. They never seem to leave.

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Sartre

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Camus.

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The nameless dragon and its nameless rider.

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Trying to build a duct tape swing.

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It didn't work. Not in the slightest. They eventually made it into something of a noose where Curious George put his foot, swing for a moment. It promptly broke, nearly concussing the man.

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Found another safety hat.

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Climbed a ridge to find a labyrinth. Wasn't still in progress.

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In the center, a place of offerings.

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By the labyrinth lies a terrifying see-saw.

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Upon the SeeSaaaw.

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Bare bones fencing

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Vainqueur gets a Devin.

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One of the views out. Any look at San Francisco was fruitless, erased by a map of fog.

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One of the more subtle anomalies are the numerous cement slabs that appeared, uniformly, across one section of the outer bulb. For the life of us, we couldn't figure out how they could arrive so orderly, coming from how this place's genesis arose. If that's the real case. Nobody really knows.

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Bicycle sculptures. There's a woman out here who fixes bicycles. Probably her handiwork.

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Someone's room.

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Oddly enough, we found the Jolly Green Giant on one of the slabs. Must have taken a great deal of work, only to be poorly tagged over.

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I scream, you scream, we all scream for REBAR.

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another ramshackle house. Great in the summer.

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Whatever parasite that is coming out of his face, I certainly hope mine has such a good sense of color composition.

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The Castle.

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None of us are really sure how this was made, but we're certain that it was just...built. Out of nowhere, some group came here and constructed it out of cement and metal, just for the hell of it, and then abandoned it. It's clearly not a bunker, no war would ever warrant something built on such unstable ground as this.

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One of the less...inspired walls.

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Install a ruin.

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Chair was writing a story about lions on one of the walls.

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Madeline drew this bird on one of the walls with a great deal of spray paint. The glorious murals that were here the last time had been covered over with ugly, ugly spraypaint.

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And this shark, as well.

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The window. Very medieval.

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Strangely enough, spending time in the castle, inside and on the roof, feels like home. Plain and simple, the little hut feels like the right place. Looking out at the bay or at the rubble around, it feels like the right what, the right when and the right how, who, and why...