It has been a minute! More exploring.. only this time up in Detroit. Detroit is easy to explore because every other building/house/place is abandoned. Sad, but true. On Friday, I visited the Brush Park area of Detroit with an exploring buddy to check out the abandoned Police Crime Lab and the apts behind it. We then headed over to the Leah Plaza Hotel to check it out.
Brush Park Police Crime Lab
Brush Park has so many abandoned beautiful mansions as well as this school turned crime lab. It has been heavily looted and is in crappy condition for being abandoned for a very short amount of time. There is nothing left in it to strip and the large amount of open walls/windows and entry points left a lot of room for weather to come in. The floor is buckled and rolled in all the classrooms.
I took a buddy with me and it was his first time exploring ever, so he was a little nervous.
We walked from downtown, it is just across one of the bridges that run over 75. The front of the building still has a fence with razor wire on the top. You can easily enter from either side, or through the back, no climbing or clipping needed.
We entered the side door, it was open. We found some military food MREs and some shot shells in the corner of that area in what used to be some sort of small kitchen storage.
We then moved into the office where there was a large safe (which was empty). After inspecting some rooms downstairs and the lockers in the hall we found a bum sleeping in a box in one room. My exploring buddy freaked out a lil (remember it was his first time).
I led the way with my lil tactical flashlight and blog video camera thing. He said he felt less manly having me go first (but did not volunteer). :)
On the stairs were a lot of cds (not very old ones either). The view from the landing between floors 1 and 2 was cool, you could see downtown detroit. The upstairs hallway was very dark and littered with lots of broken test tube vials.
The lab was very interesting. There were 2 very large specimen storage things with sliding doors. Lots of storage cupboards and countertops like you would find in a kitchen.
An office room upstairs had labels like "property release" and "case files." In one room we found a ladder up to the roof. The view of downtown, the lions stadium, and the tigers stadium was awesome. The blacktop was hot as heck.
There was a police seal painted on the second floor hallway, hard to read as it was covered by graffiti.
Back downstairs we entered a completely destroyed room that appeared to be the front entry point. Found an old chalkboard and signed my name. :)
As my exploring buddy stepped outside to pee, I wandered down the hall and went through a door to the auditorium. Which was stupid, because he panicked when he couldn't find me. I filmed inside the auditorium and the still in tact stage curtains (when everything else was gone - they were still up). After a few minutes, I wandered back to the front to find him looking for me scared. He pulled his knife, thinking someone had taken off with me, which I found hilarious. Don't be stupid like me and tell your buddy where you are wandering to!
A few pics:
Section completely crumbled.
Downtown and crumbled section from roof.
Downtown from roof.
Tigers stadium from roof.
Rooftop.
Door in front reception area.
Newspaper on floor, dated 1987.
Crazy fun, love exploring abandoned places! I will do a separate post on the 2 other places explored the same day.
< 3 Cortnie