Explorations and Adventures?

The Lapochka Scenario

Recorded on my reels of tape, the trauma stops my flow, and in your suppression tastes sulfur, and secretly, come Sunday morning, standing at the pulpit to an empty room Things didn't go anywhere close to plan this weekend, but in the end it all made sense: we had to go find some abandoned churches, and Buffalo was the closest place we knew we could do it. St Mary's Church, downtown near the Anchor Bar Sacred Heart, in the First Ward Trinity Baptist, where I completely forgot to take any pictures of the sanctuary (Shroomdamnit!) And finally we stopped by…

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That Does Not Compute

Yet another revisit to the Sykes Datatronics factory, a place that will always be meaningful to me since it was my first abandoned building, just about 7 years ago. After an astounding 12 arson fires, and 25 years exposed to the elements, it's starting to seem like this place is going nowhere fast. Other than a few holes in the tarpapered roof, the structure is as solid as ever (if you ignore the warping parquette floors over the foot-thick concrete), and the neighborhood is still in stagnant decline, despite being within sight and sound of the soccer stadium. I don't…

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Bombed Out Mill

After the unexpected success at Lyons Falls, yet again we found ourselves at Deferiet and running out of daylight. If anything, Deferiet is an even bigger paper mill, although a huge part of the center is missing thanks to a rare opportunity for Fort Drum to do some live fire testing of a bunker buster in 2009 or so, leaving behind a crater of burned brick and twisted steel. The mill buildings aren't as interesting either, having been cleared out of most anything that could be moved when International Paper left. I have a feeling this waterfall used to be…

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Just Milling Around

This was something of a first for me - traveling somewhere far away to a place that not only have I been, but I wasn't with anyone guiding me to it. As fragile as things have been for me over the years finding people who will explore with me, it was probably a huge mistake, but one that paid off in the end. After a bit of wandering to check out an abandoned, delicious apple orchard (can all this fruit be free?) and another mill which seemed to have been demolished decades ago, we eventually made it to Lyons Falls,…

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Motel Hell

Truck stops aren't exactly the cleanest, most inviting places even when they're in the best of shape. As you can imagine, an abandoned one, especially one in a city on a road no one really uses anymore, is just that much sketchier and grimier than the ones on the interstates. Isn't this just where you would want to spend the night after a long day on the road? Just like home prison? I get the idea these were probably frequent offenses at a place of this repute. Seems a bit odd that the beds are all made though. I wonder…

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Colour Your World

A century ago, most of America's paint and dye came from Buffalo, and Schoellkopf's near monopoly on the business. Aniline dyes, the most common colors at the time, put the blue into blue jeans, blue pens, blueprints, and just about anything else blue, and the purple into carbon-copies and grape kool-aid. However, competition from overseas and water pollution from the chemical processes required to create aniline, brought the company to a grinding halt in 1978, and despite attempts to expand into food coloring and other organic chemical production, the last workers went home in 2003. The vast majority of the…

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