What are urban explorers?

star twinkle in there, um Chuck. Yes, Josh. Have you ever passed by, like an old store or something like that and you you just felt drawn to go look in the window, just kind of peer in it. An old store that's closed down, like yeah, exactly, I'm sorry, an old unused store of some sort, like an old grocery store, and you look inside and really it's just kind of like, you know, some pillars that hold the ceiling up, maybe, if you're lucky, a couple of shelving units. Yeah,

it's about it, right, I do. I'll get into this little later, but I'm way, way, way turned on by this subject. We're gonna be talking about this. I'm way into it and I've done it turned on. Well yeah, sure intellectually, okay, I guess yeah, it's like that's a weird thing to be turned but have you ever Okay, well, wow, my holy intros just shot, let's talk about urban explorers. So sorry to derail. You know, you're fine, You're fine. Um,

So okay, so we're talking about urban exploration. Uh, and let's just give a little background here, a little definition right here. Well, urban explorers are people that it doesn't always have to be urban meaning city. It's basically when you go and explore any abandoned structure, almost always abandoned, almost always abandoned structure, and you see what's there. There's uh, there's some ground rules. You know, you're not supposed to take anything. No, there's some real codes of conduct that

that have cropped up that are like really strict. So, um, basically you got urban exploration really kind of starting in earnest in the nineteen seventies right there in the San Francisco. Yeah, this group called Suicide Club and I'm not entirely certain, but I think kan Kisi was a member um and they used to go tour like um old utility tunnels and old hospitals and stuff around San Francisco. They also used to do and I think this is where they

got their name. UM. During storms they jump into San Francisco Bay and apparently there was one sea wall that had some heavy chains linked to it, so they'd hold onto the chaine and just get whipped around by the waves. Yeah, they did other weird stuff. They had, like dinner parties on Golden Gate Bride. Yeah, that was really cool. But they they they And also you can even go a little further back than that. UM in the fifties, students at m I t UM used to tour like underground

steam tunnels on around campus and everything. But most people credit Suicide Club is the people who really started to do urban exploration. But it took about twenty years before really started to catch on. And so you've got the nineties and now all of a sudden there's that that Code of Conduct, the Code of Ethics, right, which were well, like I said before, you're not supposed to take anything.

What I thought was interesting is, uh, there's an old saying with camping and wilderness exploration, which is take only pictures, leave only footprints, and it's like that. Yeah, yeah, and it's the same thing with urban explorers. Even though they're you know a lot of people would just say they're just ratty old buildings. They have a lot of respect for it, it it seems like, Yeah, and there's a lot

of people that they have to contend with. I mean, you have homeless people who find these ready old buildings to provide shelter. Um. You've got people who I've never understood the compulsion to um spraying graffiti, especially when you suck at it. I don't know. I've got a can of black paint and look I can write it just looks awful. Now if you're a graffiti artist, totally different, but just spray painting something for the sake of spray painting.

Don't understand it, Yeah, especially if your tag sucks. I don't. I don't think you should do it. I think you should either work on your tag or just quit altogether. Um okay, So uh, they they've got all these other people that actually probably kind of give their them a bad name urban explorers. And when I say them, I'm referring to a vast network of people who are either

totally independent, loosely or very tightly um knit. Thanks to the Internet, Yeah, the Internet's really helped, which is probably why it started to really take off in the night. Um, and these people are just like you said, they're drawn to uh abandoned or unused or um neglected man made structures, right I am. Yeah, but they don't they're not the ones who are doing the graffiti. No, that's because that's against the code of conduct. They don't break things. You can't. Yes,

you can't use wirecutters to make it past defense that. Um. You know, you certainly can't kick in a door or anything like that. And yeah, if there's like uh, I read about one guy who found the Sole Mining Office. It was like a nineteenth century office and he found like these reams of like really personal personnel files, way more personal than you I would hope my personnel file is. Um. And he he just sat there and read them and

quietly put him back. Um. I think he found some X rays and things there too, of like people with black long and it just really interesting stuff. But he didn't take anything and put him back where he found him. Um. So that's another one too. UM. So all of this stuff kind of forces you to get creative, right and how you get in, how you get in, but also you know what you're doing while you're there. If you can't take anything to show your friends. That logically leads

to documenting it. And there are tons. If you go on a flicker and type in urban exploration, urban explore, urban and anything about urban whatever, as long as I has to do with UE, it brings up some really cool stuff, haven't that? Oh you got to? And of course my favorite web site of all time Forgotten Detroit, which I make look at probably what once a month, hasn't changed a decade. Um. Yeah, that that's the same

thing too. It's one of the aspects of urban exploration is to document this crumbling present that's actually very much rooted in the past, you know. Okay, so what have you explored? I'm curious. Well, I don't know when this all started, but I was really young and just I thought most boys were like this, but I was way way into exploring things. Um, my dad's photographer used to take my brother and out to the country in Georgia to photograph old barns and things, and my brother and

I would always explore these barns. And that's I guess that's kind of how it started. And there's something about a large it actually does. I'm not sure you could probably study me clinically because anytime I'm in a large empty building, I get really excited. Like it doesn't even have to be an old abandoned building. But I've taken like a tour like a stadium, let's say, uh, Sanford Stadium at U g A when no one else was there, and being out there with no one else, it's just

there's something about it. It just I don't know, it thrills me really. Yeah, So I mean, have you gotten into this a little more of you taken it to? Well? Yeah, when I was about thirteen or fourteen, Uh, my family used to vacation in Florida and Pensacola, Florida, and there was an old fort there at the campground called Fort Pickens. Uh eighteen forty three is when this thing was built,

and it was in service till about forty seven. And we uh made torches just like you see on TV, with like the stuff the cloth wrapped around the end and the battery there on the beach. You could sneak through the bars they're like prison bars. And my brother and I did this and we'll explored all these rooms and tunnels from like the Civil War. Guys had stuff like scratched on the wall and painted on the wall.

Was it like a prison? I don't really know. I actually look today to try and find out exactly what part of Fort Pickens we were in. I think it was the battery. I don't think it was a prison, but they would have the bar, so you know, obviously the enemy couldn't get in to their stuff unless they were fourteen year old boy enemies. But uh yeah, So we explored the heck out of Fort Pickens and it was really really cool. And then I did it again,

probably about eight or nine years ago in Atlanta. I lived in some warehouses on the west side of Atlanta, and my friend and I got into one that was empty and kind of boarded up, and we found all these old blueprints for Marta, our subway system here for when Marta was first being pitched to the city in the seventies, and all these old plans and blue prints, blueprints and letters and things like that. Yeah. So I'm

way into it. I mean that way into it. I'm obviously not in a club, and I don't do this regularly, but when I have done it, I just think it's really cool. Do you have a handle? I don't have a handle. I didn't take anything though, And I didn't even know that was the rules. I just didn't want to disturb anything. It sounds like, yeah, so done it a few times, and I would do it again at

the drop of a hat. I mean, if someone know of a place, if you called me up on a Friday and said, hey, man, I know this empty shopping mall. In a second, I'm glad you said chopping malls. There was one that um. Actually I want to plug another site uh u e R dot c A. It's a Canadian Urban Exploration and Resources site UM. And they basically they allowed people to post, you know, documentation of their own exploration. And there was one that I was looking

at in Atlanta. I think I showed you too, of the old Evandale mall right near where I grew out. Whoever did that just did a spectacular um job of documenting this mall. It was clearly in it's heyday in the eighties. Everything's very pestelish. Um. There's like huge mirrors everywhere. It is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen in my life. And now it's gone. There's a wall right there, which is another point of urban exploration. As

far as I understand it. You're you're catching a last snapshot of um, something before it dies, because we inevitably tear just about everything down, and this is this is keeping it for posterity, not in its in its form of you know, when it was in its in its peak or or you know, functioning, but almost like after it's aged and right before it dies, you're you're kind

of catching capturing that one last look. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's at this point that we should say we do not recommend urban exploring because it is in fact trespassing and it is illegal. So we're not saying you should go out and urban explore it just because your friend Chuck ads. Not only that it's very very dangerous, it can be by definition, a neglected building is you know, it's a dangerous place. Um. You know, there's such things

as building inspectors, but they only inspect functioning buildings. UM. So if you take the function out of building, there goes to building inspector and you have no idea whether you're gonna fall through a floor or you know, um have a or fall on you from above, which would make it a ceiling. I believe actually someone passed away,

not too long ago. Was again in Australia. There were some kids that were exploring a sewer system and there was like a sudden storm and the stormwater just came hard and fast swept them off their feet and um pinned them against the great where respectitting into the ocean, and they drowned pinned against this great So yeah, I mean you could can be very dangerous. It can be. So yeah, I think that was a good move, Chuck. I think our legal department is really gonna appreciate that.

Don't listen to me. Listen to me, but don't do what I say. So so, we've talked about shopping walls, right, but there are actual like you know, there's other mundane things like that, like, um, an old office building or something like that. Um, there's just if you if you for some reason, if you take people out of a building and leave it there for ten years, anything's interesting, right. But there's also some like destination spots for been exploration, like, um,

have you heard of a Danver State Hospital? Have you ever seen the movie Session nine? I have you've seen Session nine? Yeah? I've brought that up in another person I've ever I've ever met who saw Session yea. I brought that up for our asbestos article because it's an asbestos team in the movie that's going to this abandoned mental hospital. Very creepy movie. Yeah, yeah, it is very

very creepy. But that's that's filmed that danvers Um. And there's another place that's in Massachusetts and it's an abandoned insane This island Um, which is just creepy enough. But this thing is huge old Gothic architecture brick. I would love to walk through that place. Well, there is one that's similar that you could walk through, which actually technically takes it off of any urban exploration list because one of the things is that it has to be off

limits to truly be urban exploration. Um. There's a place called Waverley Hills in Kentucky. It's a tubercular the sanatorium and I think it was around for thirty or forty years and in that period of time, sixty thousand people died there. Yeah, it was bad. They have like this little morgue um that's still they're the White Child. There's like hospital like old time hospital, gurneys everywhere, old timey wheelchairs. It is beyond creepy and that's actually open for tours.

I think there's a couple that either brought it or bought the rights to give tours there. So Waverly Hills in Kentucky would be a good place to go if you're into that. I love it. I think part of it as to do with being scared. I like that feeling. Um, it's exhilarating feeling to be somewhat frightened. I'm not talking scared out of my wits or anything. I don't like that, but there's something about an element of danger, being scared and being some large, dark place alone that just I

don't know, I get a kick out of it. I agree. Well, you and your brother take your own advice. Be careful if you gonna do it, and if you did, don't say that we told you to do it. Okay. Well that's that's urban exploration. Uh. And this is listener mail. Okay, So Chuck, what do you have for us, Josh, have a couple of quick corrections this week. We're not always right. That is a lie. We did the best we can with facts, but sometimes we think of things on the

fly and don't exactly have another fingertips. So we have a couple of corrections in our podcast about which one was it with the magic bullets? Where was it? Where's the best place to get shot? Kennedy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you mentioned that you thought it was a senator who was shot with JFK and Dallas and of course it wasn't. And you should have known this one, uh Texas Governor John Connelly, who was actually in the car

with him. Why should I have known that one? Because it's that was a big event in our nation's history. But wow, I'm not scolding you, but I didn't know it either, So what am I saying? And who is that from? That was from Dave Barton? Thanks to Dave, and then Carrie Clinger, who was a dentist here in atlant Anna actually says she wanted to comment on the inconsistency with the one about the f d A and

herbal substance regulation. We compared tile and all over the counter, taile and all the time, all three which you need a prescription to get. And the reason you need a prescription is because time all three is regular thailing, all with codeine added, which is a narcotic. I don't I don't even remember saying that can we play the clip real quick exactly, like, think about how you perceived tile and all, and then how you perceived tile and all. Three.

That's stuff with Cody, right, which is pretty much like Migrants of Taile at all, think something like that. That's from Carrie Clinger, And like I said, she's a dentist, and she said, it's not a matter of a difference in dosage. It's a much different drug with a narcotic in it, and so it's subject to regulation. And she says that she prescribes it whenever she takes a tooth out. And I'm actually in the market for a dentist, so I'm look, I've got one for you. Well, I want

to go to Carrie Clinger here in Atlanta. Okay, get some coding. That's that's awestuff. You're med seeking. You realize, Oh, well, I'm in case I need it, in case at a tooth out. Have you noticed we're huge in the dental community. That's two letters from Dennis. Yeah, that's weird. All right, Well, thank you to Carrie Clinger and uh Dave, thanks Dave um And if you want your letter red, make sure it's witty and clever and send it to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on this

and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you