My Trips and Adventures

   First, I will start by explaining what “Urban Exploration” is. Urban Exploration is going into abandoned buildings and looking around. The difference between them and vandals are that Urban Explorers don’t break anything on purpose, like smashing windows or breaking everything they see. Sometimes they do take something as a keepsake, like some papers from when the building was in operation, or they take some pictures. Of the inside of the structure they are exploring.                                                                         

        While I had my house upstate, next door to us there was an abandoned house. The whole thing was caving in, but I’ve always wanted to look at it. Also on our way up there, we passed about four or five abandoned houses, which Ive always wanted to get out and actually look at. Eventually, even though not in those houses, I went Urban exploring. The first place I ever went to was the Kings Park Psychiatric Center building number 93 in Kings Park, NY. The building was the “Hospital” where if you were in the Psychiatric center and you got sick, you went to Building 93. I went with Ronnie and my friend James, whom I met on a trip to New Jersey with Ronnie. The place was amazing! It was the tallest building on Long Island, being over ten stories. The beds were still inside, along with the cubicles where the patients stayed. The building was abandoned in sections. Starting with the top floor, and as years went by, more floors were abandoned, finally in the late 1980’s, early 90’s the staff left 93 for the last time. There were dressers and cabinets, some old bottles and benches. In the kitchen, the counters were still there as well. There was graffiti everywhere, along with peeling paint and there was piles of dust everywhere, probably the paint. Asbestos was coming out of the ceiling. On the inside was in poor condition, but on the outside it looked spectacular.

ABOVE: Building 93 in Kings Park Psychiatric Center as of 2013. (Photo courtesy of James Duffy)                                                                         

        The main attraction is the elevator shaft. Someone pried open the top floor elevator doors and threw stuff down. To see a video of the first time I went there and threw stuff down the shaft click here. People have been doing it ever since. It is so loud and it echos throughout the entire building. When we were there, we threw some bricks and marble, a few metal objects, we even threw a bench. We declared that next time we go we are throwing a sink. We call throwing stuff down the elevator Shaft “Shafting”stuff. Ever since then, I’ve been going around and exploring. One night with a kid named Chris, one of James’ friends, I went to an abandoned house in Plainvew and looked around in there. It was really cool because all the appliances were still there. The house was abandoned in the 1970’s or 80’s. After that, at around midnight, we went over to Farmingdale, NY to go see Fairchild. Failrchild manufactured airplanes for the government for many years. They closed in the 1970’s. since then there were two fires in the old factories. Today there is a small shopping mall where most of the old factories once stood. Anyway, when we got in, I was amazed. The roof of one of the buildings was completely gone. We poked around a little and saw some pretty cool stuff. In the basement of one building, the steam generator for heat is still there. In the other there was some very well made graffiti. In the building with the steam Generator, we went to the second floor. Chris said that he had never been there before, so we looked around. When we got up the stairs, we noted that the floor was missing to a certain point and that we have to walk the beams in the hall. When we got to solid floor we were relieved. I walked around a little more and suddenly: CRASH! My foot went through the floor, but luckily the ceiling for the first floor kept me from going all the way down. I said to Chris “I’m Out!” and I ran for the beams, he started to go with me and his foot went under, then mine went under again. We got to the beams safe and got out of there.

ABOVE: One of the buildings at Fairchild (Photo courtesy of Christopher Kelly)

        On another day, Me, my friend Scott, who's been wanting to go for years, and James went over to Kings Park and adventured around. I wanted to show Scott inside building 93, but it was too wet because it had just rained. Instead, We went into areas of the center which I’ve never been before. We attempted to go inside one building, but they had boarded up the only entrance, but we ended up going into another building. It was really cool inside. There were a few paintings left and there was almost no Graffiti. We walked around for a while and found some music sheets as well as a roll of toilet paper.

   
        We headed home after that and later that night, Me, James Chris, a kid they all call “Schwig”, and Shwig’s brother came back to go to building number 7 at night. When we were heading to our original parking spot, a cop followed us, so we couldn’t go there. We then proceeded to a neighborhood which is right next to the psychiatric Center and walked from there. It was about 12:00 midnight when we arrived at the steam tunnel entrance. Well it was really a little cap thing and we had to squeeze into it. We walked through the “ New” section for a while and then we hit the “Old” segment. The difference between the two were quite obvious. The “New” section was made so that people can walk through and repairs could be done, the old section we had to bend down to walk through to avoid hitting our heads on the steel beams, which I ended up doing a few times anyways. And we had to go around pipes and shit. As we walked through me and “Schwig” were reciting the South Park “Dey Turk ‘R Jerbs” thing all the way till we got to building “7”, or what we thought was Building “7”. It actually turned out to be Buildings “21”and “22”. The reason why they are called that is because they are connected. Anyways, we spent about 2 hours trying to find a way out of them, which we eventually did. It was now 2:30 A.M and we finally got to building “7”. We got in and went to the roof. It was beautiful. We looked out and since Kings Park is a hilly area, You would see only the tops of the hills, the bottoms were covered in fog. There was also a hole in the clouds above the building. All you saw was clouds for miles in the sky, then a hole. Building “93”was also visible, but just barely. There was fog, then this big black shape in the fog which was 93. There was a train leaving Kings Park station, and you saw the light from the headlight illuminating the trees a few miles away as it left. I walked around the roof looking at everything you could see. James walked around and took pictures while Schwig and the others sat against the radio “Cube” and talked. I walked around and at one point the roof under me started to sink, so I got the hell away from there. Eventually, I would join Chris and the other two and talked. We sat on the roof for what felt like 5 hours, but only turned out to be one hour. After James was done, it was now 3:30 A.M, and we left. We left “7”and as we were going back to “21”and “22” we saw something staring at us. We looked for like 10 minutes and as it started to walk towards us, we got the hell out of there. We walked through the steam tunnels again and I hated it even more, there was asbestos everywhere and I really didn’t feel like getting cancer, but we had to do it. I would end up getting home at about 5:45 A.M and I had my Birthday Party the next day. This would be the last awesome thing I would do before turning 19 years old.

ABOVE: View from Building 7 that night facing South towards an The Elementary School. (Photo courtesy of James Duffy)

         On another night, Me and James went to 93. He brought along one of his friends Beatrice, who we called Bea. We went up and immediately went to the top floor to drop stuff down. I basically swept up the entire area in front of the elevator door and dropped all the tile pieces down the shaft. After we cleaned the floor of the tile pieces, I started throwing stacks of entire tiles. When all the whole tiles were gone I ran down to the 12^th floor to get some bricks. While down there I saw a pair of eyes in the room with the cubicles where the patients stayed. I stared at it and it stared back for what seemed like an hour, but what was really probably like 10 minutes. I ran back upstairs scared out of my mind. I told James and Bea, and we ran down there and it was standing taller than James and we ran out as fast as I could. After we left we started hearing someone yell from the top of the Power Plant. I was debating weather to answer or not. James said no, but Bea said why not, so I did and for the next hour these guys and us were making random noises and television references. James did his Mega Fart. He blows into his arm and its really loud. After about an hour someone from the bar yelled at us from the parking lot to shut up, but we kept going. And eventually his friends friends came down while he stayed to answer our “calls.” His friends came and met up with us and eventually he came down to. The kid answering was named Adam and he was pretty cool. It turned out he was from Bay Shore and he knew Evan, Ronnie's Brother. He told us he goes exploring all the time and one day we can meet up with him.

 The next night me, James and Ronnie went back and we threw more stuff down the shaft. On the way up, we found a water fountain and James brought it to the top floor and “Shafted” it. Right before we threw it down, a group of people showed up and when we sent it down, they all laughed and continued looking around. We then went to the porch and looked out into the night. It is a beautiful scene from there. You could see across the sound to Connecticut. We proceeded to then look for more stuff to send crashing down. We found a pipe that we threw from the attic through a trap door and into the black abyss that you see when you look down the elevator shaft at night. As we were leaving the attic, we went up to where the elevator motor sits on the second floor of the attic and found a metal door and a metal door frame. We took the metal door down the stairs to the main attic and brought it to the stairs that lead it down to the 13^th floor. James pushed it down those stairs because we didn’t feel like trying to hold it back bringing it down. Once we got to the elevator door, we threw it down. It screeched and sparked all the way down. I’ve never seen James laugh that hard before. After the door, it was the metal door frame’s turn to get “Shafted”. We opened the trap door from the attic to the 13^th floor and me and Ronnie went down to the 13^th floor as James dropped it. It made a ton of noise. And so James then came down stairs laughing and we sent it down to that black abyss. At first we didn’t think it would fit, but it did. It was louder than the door itself. We were dying when it went down! We found a aluminum counter top and threw that down to. Unfortunately it gout stuck, so we threw stuff at it and it didn’t budge. So we found a long stainless steel piece and that didn’t work either. So we found a chair, but it didn’t fit on the normal side, so we went to the other side where the bottom of the door is loose as we tried to fit it in there. It fit but the top of the chair got stuck in the door. We got the biggest hunk of whatever and we gave it to Ronnie and said “Bro, you got one shot at this!” He threw it at the chair, which came loose, fell, hit the Aluminum counter top, which then fell into the black abyss. It was even louder than the door! James even said that was the loudest thing to ever go down the shaft and hes been doing it for many years before that! After that we left but every once in a while we took out the videos we got of that night and laugh our asses off!

                On another week, Me and James went to 93 again and we lead a group of like 5 people in. Eventually another group also followed us and we ended up with like 10 people following me and James. Some of them were drunk butg most were not. They weren't very smart with their flashlights however because they kept shining them out the windows and me and James repeatedly told them not to do that. At the 6^th floor they decided to look around and me and James kept going. We went to the top floor and threw a bunch of things down and went down to check on the group. When we got there they were all shaking scared and said “ DUDE DID YOU HEAR THAT!?!? THE GHOSTS ARE ATTACKING!” One of them we think even shit his pants. Well we took them to the attic and showed them the porch. They were amazed at how beautiful it was. We also showed them the elevator shaft and threw some things down. The group of kids loved it! We left after that and we discussed what to do after we left 93. We decided to call it a night after that because security had increased.

                Next it would be Me, James, Schwig and Chris. Me and James met up with Chris Schwig and two other people and we jumped the other persons car so that they can go home. We proceeded to 7-11 for a quick snack before heading to Central Islip State Hospital. As we were leaving there was the sound of tires screeching then two loud bangs. All of us started running, but James yelled “We do have cars!” so we hopped in Mine and Schwigs car and headed to the accident site. The smell of transmission fluid was heavy in the air and people were heading out of the Bar next to the accident site. A taxi and a car had hit each other and the taxi smashed into a pole, destroying the engine compartment. Everyone was alright thank god. A cop, who came out of the bar screaming “I'm a cop I know what I'm doing! Stay Back! Stay Back!” James Challenged him, and The cop yelled at him so James asked for I.D and the "cop" never showed it. We started talking to one guy who was in the bar at the time and he told us that the Taxi was speeding and the car hit him. We hung around there for a while until the Cops came then left. It was around 3:00 a.m. Eventually Schwig dropped off his car at his house and it was off to C.I around 3:30 and looked around. We entered a building and headed upstairs to the top floor where we found papers from the days when the building was in operation. I found a number of papers regarding lost shipments of coal for the power plant on the Long Island Railroad, with car numbers and everything. I took those papers, Chris took some papers regarding electrical appliances such as fans, James took stuff about the center itself and Schwig just helped find stuff. I would end up having to drive everyone home and I was exhausted. James ended up driving to his house, Schwig to his house and Chris to his house. I had to go to school early the next day so I slept at Chris’ house because he lives a few blocks away from Adelphi University.

                The next event was in building 7, the Morgue.  This adventure would include me, James, and Ronnie. We parked at the bar across the street from the center and walked to 93. We went upstairs, to the shaft and threw things down. Started at bricks and the objects got bigger and bigger. Our group of misfits headed to the attic to search for objects and we found a door, a pipe and a metal door frame. First to go was the pipe. We threw it directly through a hatch from the top floor to the attic which was where the elevators were. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that loud. Our second victim was the door. It was not fun to get to the shaft at all. Me and James carried it to the stairs and James pushed it down the stairs. It was so heavy it put a dent in the wall at the end of the first flight and chipped two of the steps. That door would turn out to be loud as it fell down the shaft. BANG! BANG SCCCCCCREEEEEEEEEEECCCHHHH! BANG! BANG! BANG! BOOOOOOMMMMMM! Next up was the frame. The frame was metal so it would be loud to. James told us to stay on the top floor as he went to the attic. Me and Ronnie were trying to figure out what he was doing as we heard him banging it around and he yelled “READY?”  and he threw it through the hatch and it danced for a second the fell to the floor with a loud CRASH! We were putting it in the door when we realized that we had to lift it from one side so that it would fit. The frame was quite loud. We searched around  a bit and found an aluminum counter top. So up next was the aluminum counter top. We threw it, it went down a few floors and stopped. It got stuck. In response, we started throwing rocks and bricks at it and it didn’t budge. I suggested a chair and we went to the other side where there was another elevator door and pushed it until we got the chair as far as it can go. It was hanging by the very bottom of the elevator door and I gave Ronnie a brick and said “You got one shot at this, make it count.” He said “here's the pitch” as he threw the brick. The brick hit the chair and the chair fell into the aluminum counter top and that fell into the black abyss which made up the rest of the shaft. James said that was the loudest thing that he had ever head go down the shaft. We headed down stairs after and we went to the steam tunnels again. Ronnie said that he had never been to “7” so we decided to go there. We went through the steam tunnels and every way we went was blocked. They had recently walled off a few tunnels. As we were about to leave I pointed to a way we didn’t go and it turned out to be the correct way to go. As the conversation died a little I decided to play this stupid song from Sponge bob Squarepants called “Wooden Bear” as the walking proceeded. Entering the basement of a building James said “this isn't it” to which Me and Ronnie said “What do you mean?” He said that we had passed the entrance and we had to head back. Eventually finding the exit, the three of us got to the top of the building and sat down. Ronnie even said that it was a beautiful sight. Just like last time, A train passed through the trees and I showed James and Ronnie what I was talking about. We hung out on the roof for about an hour when some group of 8 kids came to the roof and hung out there. They were either on drugs or drunk because they were going to play beer pong with a ping pong ball in 45 M.P.H winds. A few even sat on the ledge.Me, Ronnie, and James were discussing what to do when a security guard pulled up about 300 feet from the building and sat there. The three of us looked at each other and I stood up to look what he was doing. The kids just kept on fooling around though. Eventually James and Ronnie also stood up as the security guard got out of the Jeep he was in and took out a sward-shaped light with 5 huge LED lights that lit up the entire side of the building. Staring at the light James proclaimed “I want it.” Clearly it shined me and James up. The guard then turned it off, put the light away, and got back in his Jeep. James came up with this plan to get the kids arrested. We were to make as much noise as possible. So we broke windows, Threw things out windows, Threw things down the 5 story elevator shaft, and even yelled out the windows until we saw flashing lights. Our escape route was the steam tunnels which took us back to 93. Heading to the car we ran into a group of kids who said “Yo, did you guys hear about the Coke bust at 7? My friend is telling me about it, he is there!” and we told him that we were there too and we just got out. This was the night I would go to Pougkipsee.

                Only me and James went next. As usual, heading for the elevator shaft to throw things down. Mostly bricks were thrown, but there was one surprise in store for me. About a week earlier, James and Ted went and they had figured out how to get the Radiators loose. These are cast Iron radiators that weigh up to 60 lbs. He kicked one as hard as he could and I dragged it to the shaft door and it went down. It was quite loud. I also found granite counter top pieces and those went down. I had brought with me my phone, 2 glass bottle cokes, and my bottle opener. I drank one as we threw stuff  down and I intended to drink my other one before we left. After we left and I had almost gotten home I realized that I left my Bottle opener and Coke at 93. A few days later, James found the Coke, Unopened still, on the first floor, but he didn’t find my bottle opener. Another issue I had was my phone. Going down the stairs from the top floor to the first, the flash light on my phone kept turning off by itself which was very annoying.  I had 30% battery life left on my phone as we searched through books on the first floor when all of a sudden it “Died” now its pitch black because James’ phone actually died. I somehow turn my phone back on and it kept going off again and when I turned it on, it said it had 30% battery left. A few days later in the bridges office it would claim that Canada was south of the United states as I searched for something on Google Maps.