‘Bando FEMA Hotel, perfect for hookers
A Houston based company wanted to reopen the La Brisa Hotel in Panama City, Florida. They’ll only do it if they don’t have to meet current building codes. Sounds like a quality real estate developer right there! From the sounds of it, this place was similar to the Pocono Resort that we published a book on ten years ago. The reviews and photos of this Panama City spot are killer! “Shower ceiling leaked for five days till big chunks of the sheetrock fell down.” AND: “Not a place to take a family neighborhood. Hooker maybe” Wow. Way to go trying to shame sex workers. Everyone deserves better conditions than that. Comically, FEMA lists this hotel as a good place for first responders to stay when traveling to and from disasters. Good job Trump! We all know how much you like hookers!
San Fran Concord Bando Redev on Shaky Ground
“Developers” and union construction workers are bickering at each other, and stalling a long planned redevelopment of the old Concord Naval Weapons Station. Good. Let them strangle each other and leave the ‘bando just the way it is!
Radicalized Capitalism Skyscraper Demolition Porn
Nothing in NYC should ever surprise anyone—certainly not the demolition of a LEED certified skyscraper. That’s right: Chase bank is demolishing a perfectly good midtown skyscraper so they ran replace it with an even taller building. As other critics have noted: How much of the old building will be recycled? How much of it will end up in landfills? Think of the tens of thousands of truck trips it’ll cost to remove the old building and haul in materials for the new one. This is weaponized capitalism: where a wealthy bank can create a vulgar display of environmental arrogance, just so they can stuff another thousand workerbees into a shiny glass cube.
Penn Station Fiasco
If you haven’t heard, New York State Government Mob Boss Andrew Cuomo is annoyed that Trump won’t commit to funding new tunnels under the Hudson River. This ‘Gateway tunnel’ project is arguably the most urgent, important infrastructure project in the United States. So, while Centralist Dems keep playing the ‘let’s reach across the aisle’ card, the republicans steadfast want to see this project dead. They want to see the economy crippled. They don’t care if you can get to work. They frankly rather you died.
This last week, Cuomo decided maybe expanding Penn Station will be better. He wants to bulldoze an entire block south of the current station, and add more tracks. These tracks would do little to add capacity, but if there’s one thing Cuomo has shown over and over and over again, it’s that he loves shiny new stations and doesn’t give one fuck about capacity or even meeting ADA requirements. Just so long as it looks like he did a thing.
None of this is going to end well, of course, but we deserve the government we allow. Maybe in 2020 we can kick more republicans and centralists out of office, and elect candidates that not only care about transit and high speed rail, but also understand how desperately necessary it is to combat climate change.
Property Markers
Untapped Cities has a short article on sidewalk Property Markers—if you’re unfamiliar with them, it’s an interesting situation. Often buildings are not built all the way to the property line, thus small markers are placed for legal reasons (often to boot people off the property for ‘trespassing’, though it can sometimes backfire with the property owner being sued). By the way, You’re not a real New Yorker unless you’ve seen a few of these already.
Zool Didn’t Do It.
Ghosthunters filming some goofy stuff for their YouTube channel stumbled across a dead body at the long abandoned Kuhn Memorial State Hospital in Vicksburg, MS. No ghosts were found, but two derps were detained after being caught driving the victim’s car. Highly educated crooks I tell you.
Shorties:
Oh NOES some garbage little bandos in Baton Rouge keep getting tagged up with vulgar ass graffiti AS IF THAT WAS UNEXPECTED!
An El Paso news crew decided to do some UE and OMG TAMPONS AND SIGNS OF DRUG USE! WOW. They included the address and helpful map of the location, for anyone curious enough to go check it out.
One Michigan town is recycling it’s bandos into legal growhouses.
Chances are you already know about the storm drains under Las Vegas, but do you know how and when they were built? And that they’re still building more? This article is a nice explainer that doesn’t just fixate on the homeless.
I have to admit I never heard about this massive toy train layout that was nearly abandoned and destroyed, but I’m not surprised it’s in Jersey.
ZOMG this abandoned construction site sounds fun. “It looks like a bomb hit it!” WOOOOO!!!
A homeless man in Nebraska smashed the windows of an abandoned hotel just so he could be arrested and have a bed and food to eat. The news article doesn’t mention the weather: Nebraska is cold AF this time of year, and temperatures dropped to the single digits at night this past week. But hey let’s removal all those social services so people are forced to turn to crime…
Michigan Porn Billboard Duo Arrested
Remember last fall when two silly ass kids broke into a shed and set some porn to show on an electric billboard above a highway? It seems the teens have been caught. The real crime here, of course, is that there is an electronic billboard above a highway in the first place. These kids were just following in the proud traditions of the Billboard Liberation Front.
ONE LESS BANDO!
A dirty little one floor dumpy office space in Sacramento is about to be bulldozed, forcing some squatters to ‘move on to the next one’.
A 4 floor apartment building in Winnipeg went up in flames again. The building has sat abandoned since a fire broke out there a year ago.
Bando BBQ!
An abandoned church in Odessa, Texas was set on fire last week. Comically the news story headline didn’t even mention it was a church. Texas! So Religious and pure! See y’all in hell!
A bando building at the St. Joseph’s health care facility in Hamilton, Ontario had a fire last week. If you up there you better loot whatevers left now cuz that place is gunna go.
Some derp set two buildings on the same Atlanta street corner on fire. I mean hey why stop at just one?
International Update
Korean Mockumentary about Urbex? MOST ORIGINAL IDEA EVER WOW. They seem to complain about people blowing up spots, and those behind it claim to know it all cuz they’ve been doing the urbex a few years now.
Here’s a pro tip from an actual UE original with 25 years in this game: Stop crying about other people exploring. No one cares. People blow up spots. People steal shit. People cause great rooftops and tunnels to get locked up. This is, and always has been, the reality of exploring. Don’t be jealous that someone did something that probably yielded a better story than your lame ass! You’ve been exploring 5, maybe 10 years and you think you know it all? Fuck allllllll the way off. Trust me, no one gives a fuck what you, I, or anyone else thinks.
In the UK, the former Easington Colliery Primary School, in Seaside Lane, may finally be demolished. Neighbors hate it because it is a “target for vandals and antisocial behaviour”. Oh my, how improper!
Speaking of Improper and the UK, this article starts off with the story of a guy who spent years building tunnels under his house. It doesn’t end well. How can you not love someone that insane though? BUILD ALL THE TUNNELS!
AND THAT’S A WRAP.
I just realized this past week that I took over 30,000 photos last year and have maybe processed a dozen or two. Can I even call myself a photographer if I never show any work? What. The. Fuck.
In 2020, I’m going to attempt to bake in more time for editing and promoting this work I do that no one ever sees. Are you doing things that no one ever sees?
LTVSquad.com is the blog of NYC's most notorious team of explorers. We bring you a unique roasted blend of content culled from the fringes and dark underbelly of this fine city. Consider us an Autodidact's guide to urban exploration and adventure.
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