In my neighborhood is an old, abandoned grocery store. It used to be a staple of the neighborhood, a major shopping center for people who don't have cars and don't want to go through the hassel of terrible Cincinnati public transit (seriously, I could walk the two miles to my old work place faster than I could take the bus). Efforts by the community to buy it up and convert it into something other than a white concrete building on a corner were stonewalled by the owning company.



Anyways, I was wandering around the old place when I found a seemingly easy way to explore a new level of the building.



A quick run down of how I got up for you. The metal bar in the lower left of the picture above allowed me to just get my fingers up on the overhang over the loading bay. From there I pulled myself up onto said overhang and was able to reach up to the second ledge. Here's a view looking from the overhang up.



I was then on top of the loading dock. It felt weird knowing I was probably the first person up there for what could have very well been ten years or more.



Placing the camera on a the pipe in the right hand of the photo and putting it on timer I climbed up the ledge and got an action shot of myself. Fancy. I then jumped down, got my camera and did it all again.



Once I got up there I was greeted by these sites.



I found where a vent pipe got knocked over (probably from a little over a year ago when we had a real nasty wind storm come through and take out power all over the city) I peeked down the hole and saw could see down to the floor with my flashlight.



I went up to the front and took a pic of the busy street corner.



And then a picture of me.



I hopped down to street level again, got in my car down the street (this was illegal after all and I'd rather not get caught) and then pulled around and into the parking lot to take the picture of the front that's at the top of this page. That's when I saw a cop car pulling out of the loading area where I had gained access. I don't know if someone had called reporting some weirdo creeping around or if they were just chilling out back there (I doubt the chilling out because they weren't there when I got down and they were leaving as I pulled in a minute later) but I waved to them all nice and friendly and they waved back. Either they didn't suspect me or they just didn't care enough to do anything. I wasn't arrested though, or even questioned, and of that I'm pretty thankful.