It’s before sunrise on a Sunday in March, and a 34-year-old pharmacy technician who calls herself “Cyber” has been awake for an hour.

As she prepares to make the 60-mile trip to Gary, Ind.’s City Methodist Church, the Buffalo Grove resident brushes passed the semi-formal attire in her closet traditionally associated with Sunday mass. Instead of heels, she slips on a pair of steel-toed work boots. In place of business casual pants and a collared shirt, she adorns rugged blue jeans and a coat. She won’t bring a hairbrush or lipstick with in her purse, but rather two flashlights, an inhaler for her Asthma, a daypack with her personal identification and, most importantly, her camera.

Today, Cyber has no intention of attending service. The building has been abandoned for more than two decades and was almost entirely gutted by a fire in 1997. Today, Cyber will be visiting the City Methodist Church as an Urban Explorer.

Known as UE to its participants, the growing subculture of explorers, artists, photographers and environmental appreciators has been years in the making.

“I tell people that Exploring is just noticing the world around you,” said Cyber. “That phrasing can cover a lot of ground.”

Referred to by several names, the hobby can be divided into two basic subcategories — Infiltration and Urban Archeology — and participants tend to gravitate toward just one of the disciplines.
“Infiltration is going places like subways and hotels that you’re not supposed to go … getting into parts of these places that are still lively but kind of off limits,” said Robert Fantinatto, a Canadian documentary filmmaker. “(Urban Archeologists) are people who love to go places that have been sitting idle. There can be some really unusual and beautiful things in these places — like grass growing inside an abandoned concrete factory — or something.”

Fantinatto is one of these Urban Archeologists, and featured his hobby as the subject for his 2005 film “Echoes of Forgotten Places.”

Together, the two subcategories supply the bulk for the budding culture of thrill seekers. It’s a lifestyle of challenges, secret identities, broken laws and even death for the sake of art. Within a 12-month period, one Explorer was killed during a private expedition, and the movement’s most recognizable name died of cancer.

But it’s this sort of cyclical risk – nameless people seeking out vacant buildings, only to bring groups of people to occupy the structures – that draws in thousands of individuals the world over. It is, at its root, a hypocritical thrill. Buildings are beautiful because they are empty, but the empty and forgotten spaces are celebrated by group visits. It’s a life of solitude that is practised alongside many others.

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Built in 1926, City Methodist Church’s nine stories no longer seem as majestically high-reaching as they did when the property was operational. The grey bricks of the Gothic concrete structure are crumbling. The narrow vertical windows have been almost entirely broken, and the rooms inside are cluttered with disassembled furniture. Harsh winters and years of neglect have browned the grounds’ trees and gardens. But to Explorers, it couldn’t look more beautiful

“It’s a bit of history. You look around these places and wonder ‘Why doesn’t somebody take advantage of this place?’” said Cyber. “You see these buildings, and know that they could have new life breathed into them.”

Yet while the properties are vacant, she and like-minded individuals feel privileged to document the scenery. Today about a dozen fellow Explorers have joined Cyber in Northwest Indiana for a tour of several of the city’s abandoned locations. Armed with cameras ranging from simple point-and-click digital equipment, to more expensive and elaborate tripods and zoom lenses, each member of the ensemble has come with his or her own level of preparation.

Some are attending for the adrenaline rush of the exploration; others are there to get photos to hang in their living rooms. A few are there for both. Cyber, who studied architecture during college and used sketch decaying buildings, is attending to satisfy her artistic appreciation for structural designs.

“There are some people I call ‘trophy gatherers,’ who are out for the thrill,” said Fantinatto. “A lot of younger people it seems are into bragging rights and saying they got into places they aren’t supposed to. But many do this to get footage of gorgeous places and just for their own curiosity.”

The Gary group’s experiences range from seasoned Explorers down to a few who are on their first outing. Today will serve as a crash course for the newbies, as well as a return to familiar ground for the veterans.

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The Internet has increased the activity’s visibility, especially for Explorers, many who didn’t know their hobby was shared by thousands. In fact, the Chicago UE group on the social networking Web site, Meetup.com, arranged the Gary event. With more than 150 members, the group hosts monthly gatherings at which Explorers share photos, stories of recent excursions and suggest ideas for upcoming outings, such as the March event in Indiana.

MySpace currently features more than 60 unique groups dedicated to Urban Exploration, Yahoo! is home to more than 50 and Facebook lists more than 40, while Meetup hosts 30 individual online communities. Sites such as these have created ways for Explorers to locate and communicate with other area enthusiasts and maintain their desired level of anonymity.

“I was always into weird places, and in college I had access to film equipment and a lot of free time, so I would go around and explore,” said Fantinatto. “Then several years ago I stumbled onto a few Web sites and realized that people have been doing this for decades, and that my hobby wasn’t anything new.”

Cyber too discovered the sites by accident while looking for a vintage advertisement for Thorazine, a drug prescribed for severe behavioral disorders and schizophrenia, and came across a UE photo spread entitled “Thorazine Dream.” From Web rings, to photo galleries, message boards and digital guidelines, the Internet has made some Explorers celebrities within the subculture.

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Toronto-native Jeff Chapman is often credited for putting Urban Exploration as a communal event on the map — or at least on the Web. Before his death in 2005 from cancer at the age of 31, he Explored under the alias “Ninjalicious,” and started both Infiltration.org and a magazine by the same name that published 25 issues starting in 1996. He also wrote what is considered by many Explorers to be its definitive guidebook, “Access All Areas: A user’s guide to the art of urban exploration.”
“First there was the ‘zine, to which we got letters all the time expressing the usual, ‘I can’t believe I found this. I thought I was the only one.’” said Liz, who has run the Web site since its founder’s death. “Internet message boards and even online communityism has as much infighting as any clique. … There’s also the issue of possessiveness of information, the desire to protect sites from damage or overexposure. But by and large, the Internet has been huge for this.”

Though Chapman is part of the reason why Toronto is viewed by many as the epicenter of UE, Liz points to a timeline that credits people dating as far back as Philibert Aspairt who Explored Parisian catacombs using a candle 1793, and the poet Walt Whitman, who praised Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in 1861, for being the hobby’s forefathers.

“If somebody posts something about a new building or one that’s hard to get into, and they are the first person there to be the first to post photos of it, they become kind of like a celebrity,” said Fantinatto, who lives in Toronto and acknowledges Chapman as an essential reason why it has been the movement’s flagship city.

But because of the Net’s global reach, the Ontario capital might as well be Chicago, or New York or Dublin and everywhere in between with seemingly forgotten relics of the Industrial Age.

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Exploration has no shortage of obstacles — both immediate physical dangers and legal ramifications.

This is why Cyber is cautious about bringing less-experienced members of the Chicago UE group to areas which are more demanding and require an increased familiarity with the hobby. As this particular Web community’s assistant organizer, she is often responsible for event planning and the safety of those in attendance. This Gary trip is no different.

The day’s itinerary is to include stops at the decrepit Palace Theater, a run-down U.S. Post Office, a forgotten apartment complex and an abandoned Goodwill Building. The trek also will bring the group to Union Station, a location at which fellow Explorer Seth Thomas of nearby Hobart, In. was struck and killed in September while taking photos of another train that was headed in the opposite direction. He was 24 years old.

“If you aren’t careful,” said Cyber, “things can just sneak up on you and cause lots of trouble. Trains, animals, weak floorboards, narrow footing … you have to be very cautious.”

One thing Explorers are aware of is the potential of being discovered by the police. While many of the enthusiasts abide by the Hikers’ Credo — to take only pictures and leave nothing put footprints — they still stand to face legal issues if discovered mid-excursion.

“It’s certainly trespassing, and may be breaking and entering,” said Lt. Tab Jensen of the Joliet Police Department. “Depending on what an individual’s intentions are, they could be charged with criminal trespassing, a Class 4 felony.”

According to Illinois Legal Aid, a service provided by the Illinois Technology Center for Law & the Public Interest, the maximum punishment for a Class 4 felony is between one and three years in prison. Some other Class 4 felonies are conspiracy to commit theft and possession of a controlled substance. Neither Cyber nor anyone in her group has been arrested during an exploration.

This type of risk inspires many Explorers to keep an alias, and keep their posted work separate from their actual names. In fact, Uer.ca — the Internet’s largest and most active Urban Exploration forum — requires registration and approval before gaining access to the site beyond its homepage. The site’s headquarters is also in Toronto, and its legion of loyally anonymous users donates more than $1,800 in yearly for site maintenance.

“We usually prefer our handles because this way our real names aren’t associated with us being on someone else’s property, even if we are just photographing it. Some property owners aren’t nice,” said Cyber.

For Infiltrators with less experience finding entry to live buildings — or maybe for those who need that extra push toward ignoring “No Trespassing” signs — Chapman published an articled headlined “Warning Signs: a guide to ignoring them” in his magazine’s second issue. The lengthy feature offers suggestions for lying to security guards (tell them “you’re looking for the washroom”), how to use fire exits as a proper advantage (this “allows us to get to places the elevator doesn’t go and gives us a way out if there’s any trouble”) and how to utilize a low-level employee’s inexperience to access “authorized personnel” areas (“claim that your authorization came from any source: a person at a help desk… an employee… or even some other friendly visitor to the area who didn’t know any better”).

Urban Archeologists often bring safety equipment, such as protective breath masks and gloves, when venturing into vacant establishments. The unique beauty that draws the sightseers in the first place — asbestos-filled walls, rotting floors, random nails and shoddy wiring — poses serious dangers.

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With fewer areas left untouched by construction and urban sprawl, Explorers feel they share a bond with their counterparts from generations before.

“This is sort of the final frontier,” said Fantinatto. “Sure, these have already been discovered, but then the buildings were forgotten about. So they have to be rediscovered. That is what we do.”
It’s this kind of bond — a bond with the past, with other Urban Explorers and with their surroundings — that cause Cyber and her crew to usually convene at a local restaurant after a day of photographing and share their results. This type of immediacy is a product of the digital era. Pictures from an outing can be posted in various Web galleries within hours and be subjected to online critiques before mud from the afternoon’s trek has been cleaned from those boots’ steel toes.

As Chapman states in Infiltration.org’s intentionally defiant disclaimer, Urban Exploration is “not for your entertainment only,” but rather for all those who see the results from countless Explorations the world over.

“(Explorers are) in it for the thrill of discovery and a few nice pictures, and probably have more respect for and appreciation of our cities’ hidden spaces than most of the people who think we’re naughty,” he continues. “We don’t harm the places we explore. We love the places we explore.”

And they usually have photos to prove it.

Daily Herald BEEP, April 2007