Spelunking

The area between the heart of Detroit and the expansive suburbs is the urban decay. It’s a tragically fascinating situation. It looks like the ruins of a great civilization that has been repopulated with squatters and the oblivious descendants of a once powerful society.

Imagine, (or not) ghettos of dilapidated homes just falling apart, concrete lots, graffiti, broken glass, barbed wire and titty bars. Literally across the street - a magnificent building, 12 stories or so of beautiful architecture. It was once an upstanding bank or hotel but now sits there hunched down, eerily quiet. The first two stories are completely boarded up and the building is abandoned. There are many ruins like this in Detroit. Theatres, hotels and office buildings stand completely vacant with their entries bricked in and windows destroyed. They remain too expensive to renovate and too costly to demolish.

I understand there are urban spelunkers in the area who break in to poke around these dilapidated buildings. What a fascinating hobby, no? Though, at this age, it would be too much adrenaline for my taste.

Once, when I was in college and showing off for a boy, I agreed to sneak into a building closed for spring break. (Infatuation will make you do these things) He and I came in through an unlocked door in the auditorium, climbed out a window and onto the roof to survey the campus, and let ourselves in through the attic. We made our way to the basement where we imagined janitors secretly smoking cigarettes on the sagging orange couch. We tried all the doors. The unlocked dusty storage room we found had a desk pushed up against the wall.

It was empty except for a few paperclips which we shaped into hearts and kept as mementos.