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All Things Exploring 2019.09.11

Published on: September 11th, 2019 | Last updated: December 22, 2019 | Written by:


“TV Head” and his Bando Stash
Surely you heard about the guy who left old TV’s on people’s porches down in Virginia? Unfortunately, it seems the cops figure out who he is, and figured out that he & his sister were stashing the TVs in a bando—because where else do you stash old ass TVs? I KNEW this story had “Urbexor!” written all over it the minute I saw it! God damned FREAKS! GET OFF MY LAWN!

Anyway, they have not yet arrested TVHead—indicating that either law enforcement is putting together a big case to punish this big scary prankster OMG SO SCARY! or they are looking for a simple ‘out’ where the prankster siblings don’t get slapped with 100% unnecessary legal records.

Whatever the outcome, this world needs more TVHeads. We need more absurd comedy and harmless fun. And hey, free TVs! Viva la recycling!

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Bando Babble:
Sometimes people are just crazy and set bandos on fire because 🤷🏼‍♂️

Speaking of destruction, it sounds like the demolition work at Hudson Psych is going about as one might expect, with a man from Maybrook having ventured over to destroy $150k in demolition equipment. Maybe next time don’t leave the keys in the excavator? This sort of thing is nothing new. Back in the late 2000s there were numerous fires and destruction of heavy machinery at the demolition of the old Byberry psych hospital in North Philly—a place that Gritty would have loved.

In Taipei, the Grand Hotel has started giving tours of what they claim is “the world’s longest secret underground slide” – located in a tunnel under the building. We have an obscure semi-underground water slide in NYC, but it’s probably not fully underground and has never been measured so far as I know.

Here is a must read, fascinating story of freight train hopping through the Sahara desert. Incredible adventure and soooo well written.

CNN has a two for one bando special this week: A fascinating look at a new book on abandoned palaces, and (surprise surprise) yet another look at Odessa’s catacombs.

In Portland, authorities say some homeless people dug themselves a tunnel under the 405 freeway. Maybe if housing was a human right such things won’t be normal.

In Hawai’i, abandoned cars are a growing problem. Just what do you do when you live on an island and importing/exporting big things is expensive?

Brexitland is still obsessed with cranking out news articles for every day, routine things that urban explorers do: this time, it’s a story on some explorers climbing a smokestack.

And finally, in our home town of Queens, the long abandoned, neglected Worlds Fair Pavilion is going to see some very long overdue work. The pavilion stayed mostly abandoned all these decades due to it being located in a Queens park, just north of a huge swath of parkland that was completely abandoned until I raised a fuss and shamed them into reopening it.

9/11 and a planet on fire.
I’ll never forget the mid-morning hours of 9/11, walking away from the dust and debris clouds along Canal street, looking to escape to Brooklyn. It was that point in the morning where every first responder working in the city was already downtown. On a morning of unexpected things, the next wave of unexpected was just arriving: volunteer fire services from the suburbs started showing up.

Never in a lifetime would you see firemen from Massapequa, Irvington or Port Chester screaming through chinatown, but there they were. Many of them were not being paid to come here, and all would be risking their lives. It didn’t matter. They had the skills and equipment. There was a job to do.

9/11 was now a long time ago. An entire generation has grown up never knowing that day, the chaos in the air, and that god awful smell of death. Instead, they, and we all, are dealing with a new emergency. We have serious problems on this planet. You read about them every single day in the news. We’re facing a climate emergency, and an economic one. Our planet is choking on pollution. Our kids will be poorer than us. Even when you’re in your 40s, you know people still paying off student loans that they will potentially never pay off. Our grankids might struggle just to breathe on an increasingly hostile, contaminated planet. This is an emergency – and still, few are rushing in. My question for you is not ‘how can you drop everything and rush in’, my question is, can you step up and do even a little bit more.

I’m not talking about the small things you should already be doing (driving less, buying less, not using straws, all that stuff you’ve already heard about). What skill do you have that you can use to make a difference, even in some small way? And if you don’t have a specialized skill… what have you done for the betterment of this situation this month? This week? So much grassroots change needs to take place, and a lot of it is as simple as knocking on doors and talking to neighbors about newer, far left candidates primarying centralist dems in races that the media barely covered.

I’m no one, but I do have a specialized knowledge set, and I’m dedicating at least one hour per week from here forward towards using my skills for the greater good. Some would argue we need to do a lot more than that, but I’m starting with just this one hour… one hour of educating political candidates on NYC transit issues. One hour of helping charitable causes. One hour of bringing the same a game of volunteer opposition research I gave AOC’s team to push against centralist candidates. One hour a week to help get money out of our politics, or to help out at a non-profit or maybe save some feral kitties. And if you count the writing I’m attempting to embark more on, it’ll add up to more than one hour.

If you want to honor the brave souls and countless victims who lost their lives 18 years ago, do as the firemen did. Bravely run into this hellfire landscape and try to make a difference. If you’re sick of seeing the constant stream of bullshit in the news (the needless rolling back of long established environmental regulations for fucking LIGHT BULBS is a great example), now is the time to get into the fight. The world is already burning, the only question is, will you join and fight for our lives? And if so, how will you? What equipment do you need? What skills can you learn even if you don’t have them right now? Everyone has something to offer, and it’s all hands on deck time. If you’ve got two hands and a brain, you’ve got this. if you don’t know where to begin, message me. Let’s get this.

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NOTE: It sometimes takes a short while for comments to be approved - unfortunately there's a lot of spam comments that come in. I absolutely love when y'all share personal stories of friends relatives etc who worked in these places. It really helps capture what these places were like before they closed up shop.

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  • About The Author

    Bad Guy Joe

    Bad Guy Joe
    Bad Guy Joe knows more about the NYC underground than anyone else on or below the surface of this planet. He has spent nearly 30 years sneaking into NYC's more forbidden locations. When not underground, he's probably bitching about politicians or building something digital. 
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