There is more to urban exploration than taking a walk in the city.
There are 406 posts filed in Urban Exploration (this is page 10 of 41).
<blockquote>The forgotten past inside abandoned homes, old warehouses and broken-down factories is a siren call for urban explorers. But even if you're just there to look, is it legal to enter?</blockquote>Source: Is it legal to explore abandoned buildings? | HowStuffWorks
<blockquote><a href="http://sashakurmaz.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sasha Kurmaz</a> is a Kiev-born photographer. In his 2013 book, Concrete & Sex, the artist reveals that his personal interest in architecture stems from his graffiti background, where he trekked the city in search of good locations for his art. “While walking, I kept looking over the city. This is the magic of these brutal shapes; functionality, and a frank expression of materiality,” he says. “During these trips I have always done pictures to remember the place and go back at night to paint – sometimes I just shoot the landscapes of the city.”</blockquote>
We both like old, neglected, forgotten stuff. There are treasures tossed out on sidewalks, ditches and parking lots. Explore your local area from the perspective of a freecycler or junk picker (there are other names for it, too many to list). What can you find to make an interesting photograph from the discarded stuff people glance at and walk right on by every day.
Found objects are interesting and you can decide whether to leave them or take them (there are less ethics when something has been thrown out rather than being on the property of an abandoned building).
Todd Fisher’s photos of New York in winter show us slushy, dirty snow. Household objects, TVs, and chairs, have been chucked unlovingly onto the street. The home comforts look strange in their new, hostile setting.
via – Dazed – The photographer mourning the loss of dirty NYC
Ontario Road Map – Road map collector. Site by Neal.
The King’s Highway – The history of Ontario’s King’s highways. Site by Cameron Bevers.
Ontario Highways – Site by Christopher J. Bessert, Cartographer, GIS Specialist, Highway Historian.
The Ontario Highwayman – Site by Chris Beach.
The King’s Highway Ends Site – Old site by Earl Andrew Washburn.
Ontario Road and Highways – Yahoo group (active).
Asphalt Planet – Ontario, Quebec and US road history and photographs. Site by Scott Steeves.
Historic Roads – Dedicated to the identification, preservation and management of historic roads. Site by Paul Daniel Marriott & Associates. Washington, DC.
Historic Bridges – North American bridges. (Ontario link). Site by Nathan Holth.
misc.transport.roads – Google Groups.
They aren’t that tough to come across. Read local history to find where routes were changed. Not every road grew into a bigger road, some were bypassed and forgotten. Those are the old roads to look for, or to start with. As you find old roads you will soon find other old and forgotten roads. Bridges too.
What about dead ends, do they count as a lost road or not?
Meanwhile, the links above will get you started with your own research and exploring.
I found some US highway history. Likely the information will be similar for Ontario and Canadian highways and roads but… that will be another post. So far I found a lot of Canadian (and Ontario specific) resources but I haven’t done the research yet.
Prior to the Federal Interstate Highway system, the United States was criss-crossed by roads built by for profit groups. During the 1920s many of these roads could barely be called roads as they were more mud, dirt and ditches than road. But, as Henry Ford continued to churn out automobiles, more and more of these state highways popped up across the landscape. Most of these roads followed old trails or Transcontinental Trails like the Oregon and Santa Fe. One of the first transcontinental highways was the Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco. It was a rock road and privately financed; Henry Ford wanted nothing to do with it because he thought roads and highways should be funded by the government. As the 1920s progress other groups formed to build and promote their own highways. By 1925, there were over 250 named highways, each with their own colored signs, names, and random sign placement. Without government oversight, many of these roads were re-routed into cities so that the clubs and groups that built them could profit from them.
In the midst of this chaos, the Federal government got involved in 1924 and started numbering all of these roads. Odd numbers ran North to South with the numbers increasing from East to West, and Even numbers run East to West with the numbers increasing from North to South. So, U.S. Route 1 runs along the Eastern Seaboard while U.S. Route 10 runs along the Canadian border.
When the Interstate Highways came along, the government decided to use the mirror image of the numbering system to avoid any confusion. Interstate 10 runs through the southern states while I-5 is in California. Thankfully, the government was wise enough to help avoid the classic “How could you get us lost?” fight between drivers and map readers. Where the two systems, the routes and the Interstates, meet in the middle of the country it was decided that there would be no Interstate 50 to avoid confusion with U.S. Route 50 which runs from Sacramento, CA to Ocean City, MD. This is the same for Interstate 60.
via – 9 Things You May Not Know About the U.S. Interstate Highways | From The Kitchen Cabinet
When the Interstate Highway Act was passed, most Americans thought it was a good idea. But when construction started and people, especially in urban areas, were displaced and communities cut in half, some started to revolt. In the 1960s, activists stopped construction on highways in New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, which resulted in several urban interstates becoming roads to nowhere.
The red, white, and blue shields used to designate interstate numbers are trademarked by the American Association of State Highway Officials. The original design for the shield was drawn by senior traffic engineer Richard Oliver of Texas and selected out of 100 entries in a national design competition in 1957.
A major concern during Eisenhower’s presidency was what the country would do in the event of a nuclear attack. One of the justifications for the building of the interstate system was its ability to evacuate citizens of major cities if necessary.
via – 10 Things You Might Not Know About the U.S. Interstate System | Mental Floss
How would you design a traffic/ road sign? All the elements of sign design you never thought of, come into play when you really start planning a better road sign.
The idea isn’t new. I’ve saved screen captures from the Wayback Machine from the older site (below). Glad to see someone else has taken up the idea and kept it going on another site. I’m linking there first so people can see what’s new and contribute ideas of their own.
I used to send possible highway route signs to the owner of The Great International Highway makeover website, Mr. R. V. Droz, a while back. Well I found out recently that his email link at his website is inoperable. Rats. I hope it’ll work well in the future.
Source: International Highway Makeover 2
From the old site, by Robert V. Droz.
Highway route markers have gotten boring over time. In the 1940’s, there were many varied shapes and colors. Many governments opted for the MUTCD default (circles) or plain blank squares. The justification for those sparse designs is that they provide for increased number visibility and easy recognition. True enough, but nothing says you can’t design a useful sign that’s graphically attractive. Linked below are many examples of potential re-designs.
Toronto Secret Routes
Their existence may be very well hidden, but the former Metropolitan Toronto did have a network of numbered Metropolitan Roads! The only place I have seen them referred to, is updates to the Toronto by-laws. They are most certainly not posted, although they may be hidden within serial/reference numbers on pieces of infrastructure (light standards, signal control boxes, etc.).
Toronto’s roads are referred to by the prefix “M.T.” — e.g., Yonge Street is “M.T. 29”. Like the Interstate system, all even numbers run east-west, and all odd numbers run north-south. Also similar to Interstates, numbers generally increase from west to east and from south to north, although there are many exceptions. Similar to Ontario’s 400-series highways, controlled-access M.T. roads start at M.T. 200; these numbers appear to also follow the even/odd E-W/N-S rule, although this theory would be better proved with the discovery of a number for Allen Road (formerly the Spadina Expressway).
(Update — December 2001! I have come across a map in a planning document which has provided insight into the numbering of Allen Road. Unfortunately the numbers are hardly readable due to over-photocopying and over-reduction, but the Allen Road number appears to be 21, which would tie it to Spadina Avenue — makes sense when you think about the original plans to tie the two roads together. Certainly it is a two-digit number, not a three-digit “controlled access” number.)
As I have yet to see an actual list of route numbers, the following lists may not include all number designations. It does, however, include all Metropolitan Roads referred to in the past four years of by-law amendments (1998-2001).
Source: Toronto Secret Routes
Note: The above content is copied (and screen capture) from a site which has been abandoned but is still findable with the Wayback Machine archives. So far, I could not find the name of the original site owner.
I watched several urbex videos on YouTube tonight. Funny, but most mentioned this or that type of place was an urban explorer’s dream. None of the places they were talking about were any dream of mine. THIS place (see photo above) is more like my dream place. I could spend the day noticing and photographing all the details.
Even better having been photographed just after the rain. Old houses look great on rainy, cloudy days.
This photo comes from Flickr, Nicolas Auvinet. I moderate an urbex group there (other than my own Ontario and Canadian groups) which had this photo submitted for review.
Wish I could step into the photo without the need of paperwork, airplanes and all the rest. Just pack up my backpack, put on my boots and step through.
But, I can use a copy of the photo as my desktop wallpaper. At least I can see it again that way.
Source for image: Jenny Lewis
When I was a kid I had a picture book called `The Lonely Skyscraper`. It was a haunting and beautiful story of a skyscraper who felt empty in the city, because nobody truly lived inside him. Sure, he was full of bustle and noise during the day, but at night he was left dark and alone, but for a few security guards patrolling his floors.
So he uprooted himself and ran away to the countryside, where gradually animals came to live in him, with dormice and birds making nests of his paper supplies, bears hibernating in his basements, and deer grazing the grass that shot up through his forecourt. With so much life inside him, he finally knew peace and happiness.
Source: The Prada store that got left behind | Michael John Grist
People think of haunted houses because they want to think every abandoned house is haunted. But, really, I think the real danger of an abandoned house is the actual house itself. Has anyone ever thought to make a game where the house is falling apart and you are exploring in the wreckage? With the addition of possibly meeting other people (living, not ghosts) who would not be happy to see you. Then, lets not for get the animals: insects, rodents and birds in particular.
Having written all that… I’d love to play something like Ravenloft if I could play without needing a group of others and all that extra set up (dice, character sheets, kit, etc). Best of all would be seeing the map, with the layout of the house and then exploring to see each room in all the architectural details. You can skip the ghosts and monsters for me. I’d just like to see the house, even a fictional house.
Source: Haunted Half-Dozen: Six Unforgettable Haunted House Scenarios for Tabletop RPGs – Geekcentricity
Source: OLD Canadian Cemeteries Places OF Memory 1554071461 | eBay
I ordered this book and it has arrived. All packaged up very nicely. I was expecting more photographs, but we are becoming too dependent on the visual and instant gratification these days. I am very happy about the content and the poetry (atmosphere of the book). I started reading as soon as I had it out of the packaging.
