Sublunar Photography

This location is one of the tallest buildings around and has been the subject of some controversy after it was announced that it would be vacated. Naturally we began to eye the place up. But we soon discovered that although the major tenant has in fact moved out, there are still some active offices on the upper floors. My valiant comrade and I nevertheless found our way inside and made it to the very rooftopiest hatch only to find a big padlock in our way. Fortunately, the next roof platform one flight of stairs down from there was not secured in such a way as to deny our advances. We opened the door to the glorious howling of air currents at heights that are normally reserved for the flying rats we call pigeons. Tall buildings seemed small and humans were no longer easily distinguishable. After enjoying the view from the roof, we proceeded down to the executive level, the topmost habitable portion of the skyscraper. We found chandeliers, ugly contemporary paintings and a large, but sadly empty, bar. We carefully made our way around inside while looking for motion sensors or alarms and found no obvious signs. Soon, however, I opened a hall closet on the South-East corner of the top level and found an alarm panel which was lit up light a Christmas tree. Evidently silent, and well hidden, alarms are the current situation here. We immediately headed for the exits just as security was making their way after us. But luck was on our side and the day was won by the good guys as we exited without incident.

I wouldn't normally post a location like this but we probably couldn't replicate this trip if we wanted to. Well, we might be able to since we're professionals, but you couldn't since you're not us. This bulding is not open to the public, so first you have to get inside. Good luck. Then you'd have to get past security, then past the alarms. Assuming you made it to the top where we did, you'd then have anywhere from 1-20 minutes before someone came looking for you. Furthermore, this trip did not occur recently; I held off on posting this one for a while.

Click here for the video from this trip.

The awesome 20 story Wright Arcade, along with its neighbor the Paul Brown building, seen from above. That's a massive building but it looks small from way up here. Check out the Wright Arcade here.

BONUS RANDOM ROOFTOP SHENANIGANS

This blog doesn't see much in the way of rooftopping related shenanigans for the simple reason that it's not usually worth a post on its own. As for me, I've usually kept my camera put up when we're doing things that require either speed or concealment or just plain mobility without the slow/heavy gear getting in the way. Security guards aren't going to wait around for you to get your camera safely put up before they pursue. So in many cases over the years my phone has served to capture the action in bits and pieces here and there-just for something to remember the place by later. So here's a few other rooftops (and assorted rooftop attempts) that have occurred over the course of the past few years and some of which I never bothered to post anywhere. I recently found some of these shots on old memory cards from various old phones I've had over the years and thought this would be the place to share them.

The Nebraska State Hospital was originally constructed on 500 acres in Hastings Nebraska in 1887. It was known by a variety of interesting names throughout the years, such as: the Nebraska Asylum for the Incurably Insane, Ingleside, and Hastings State Hospital. The oldest of the original buildings were unfortunately demolished in the 1980s when the site was turned into a minimum security prison called the Hastings Correctional Center. At the time of our visit, the campus housed a large, active, corrections facility with a handful of vacant buildings scattered among the active ones, most of which were connected by tunnels...

Click here for the video.

Just like the recently penetrated "Government Health Campus", it appears that the current ownership of this location has been enough of a deterrent to keep most people away. The building presented below was the former men's prison barracks and has been vacant for 11 years. We also explored the extent of the tunnels which connect all of the buildings and even found our way into the active power plant for this campus, among other structures. Due to the nature of exploring partially active locations, however, I only took the time to photograph what you see below. The rest of the action can be seen in the video of this trip.

NOTE: For nearly 10 years, I called this location "Asylum #7". I have since updated this post to reflect the site's real name and history. All of the good stuff here has since been demolished.