I’ve been exploring at least every week this summer, and hardly have any pictures to show for it; finally I got out during the day for a change, back to the Flint Street warehouse, which is more rotten than ever before, and features an ungodly stench in the July heat. It’ll probably be the last time I bother with this place… but I wanted to at least try the new wide angle I got for my birthday. ugh…
Someone tore down the attempt at boarding up the gaping hole in the back of the building. It’s had a turbulent history for the last 5 years, since the last tenant (some sort of thrift/junk shop, from the looks of it) left. First a professor from RIT squatted in it for “artistic” reasons for a year, then came a homeless “character” we called Mr. October for his habit of listening to baseball on the roof, with a very powerful boombox you could hear from a few blocks away. The next occupant had a penchant for booby-traps, and left the doors slightly ajar, with a nasty surprise or two awaiting anyone who tried to open them. On my attempt, it was a bowling ball on a swinging rope, designed to provide a 16-pound ball-to-balls fuck you from the squatters. Other people I knew who tried it got an ice bucket, a bucket of nails, and a Rube Goldberg device of coffee cans and pennies that made more of a racket than a thief could.
Who needs “I’m Parked In Front”? I’m parked inside!
The whole first floor used to be filled with assorted junk. Someone has cleaned it out pretty well since March.
This is the source of the stench that permeates the whole building now: a library of thousands of former books, reduced into piles of muck and mold.
So much mold. Everywhere.
This was the “kitchen” area of the squat. I’m not sure how much of a kitchen it actually was, since there was no power, but it has the right flooring and is littered with rotting cans of food.
The only somewhat decent part of this place left where there’s at least air to breathe is the upstairs warehouse, which also happens to be one of the more popular graffiti spots in the city.
