The first actual downtown Detroit building that I ever infiltrated was the 18-story United Artists Theater at 150 Bagley. It was on the "Dirty Dozen" list of most offensive abandoned skyscrapers c.2004, according to the Detroit Free Press. We were casually scouting the area and happened to notice that the board covering the front door had somehow been blown clear off, and out into the street—as if the mammoth building had suddenly sneezed. We parked across the street and blinked in disbelief at our good fortune.
As we did this, we observed a lone, backpack-wearing white guy amble up to the entrance, then glance up and down the desolate street before walking right in without noticing us at all. The wind was bitter, and hinting of sleet as we crossed the empty, silent street. He was obviously up to the same crap as us, since there could be no other reason for a young white kid to be in downtown Detroit by himself on a cold, grey March morning in the early 2000s.
We finished gearing-up and hurried toward the yawning, darkened hole to make our own hopefully more-nonchalant entrance. In those days downtown Detroit was not the bustling Gilbertopolis of seamless surveillance that it is today; it was a smorgasbord of vacant towers with wide-open entrances, and so little human presence on weekends that you could probably lay down and take a nap in the middle of any given street. And the homeless often did just that.
We used to say that we were going "window-shopping" downtown...that was our euphemism for browsing the weekly selection of what abandoned skyscrapers had a window open for us to get in, or that we could coax our way into easily enough. Back then there were enough of them routinely sitting open to trespass that you could actually be that choosy of a shopper, or even bring your coupons too if needed (i.e., crowbars). These days a little more discretion is called for, and the selection is nothing like it was. In those days of pervasive downtown silence, the sudden sound of peeling plywood could echo clamorously for blocks around, but there was no one there to hear it.
The United Artists Building was the one that had all the colorful graffitied windows, painted in the early 2000s by the United Vandals, or KJ5 (real name Kevin Joy). The "United Vandals" thing was of course a cynical play on the United Artists name.
I'm not sure who first came up with the theory that the Mayan-themed glyphs painted on the windows were done that way in order to represent a calendar to count down to the Mayan doomsday, but the interior of the building was certainly plastered with the number 2012, which was the year of this supposed Mayan apocalypse. It was December 12th, 2012 to be exact, but perhaps because the glyphs were buffed from the windows in 2005 the world did not come to an end on that day. In fact, it only seems to keep getting steadily worse.
Detroit's connection to the Mayan theme comes from architecture found in the Fisher Theater and Vanity Ballroom, which might be where KJ5 drew his inspiration from.
Once inside the front door we noticed that the lobby had been modernized, and reeked of 1960s mod. I apparently did not even bother to take a photo of this lobby. We then found our way into a strange, wedge-shaped alley with a door leading into the theater portion of the building.
Upon crossing the threshold, the most jaw-dropping sight I had yet beheld in all my days of exploring abandoned buildings opened up before me with a suddenness I was not prepared for. We stood, gaping stupidly in disbelief beside the stage area of the most cavernous, monumental, otherworldly space any of us had ever laid eyes on.
It was a moment I won't forget as long as I live...a thin, blue stream of light briefly trickled in through the hole in the roof, shining through the oculus directly onto the rotted stage like a ghostly limelight, and as our eyes adjusted we could make out from its ambient luminescence the mind-bogglingly extravagant ornamentation lavished on the interior of this world-class theater.
As we did this, we observed a lone, backpack-wearing white guy amble up to the entrance, then glance up and down the desolate street before walking right in without noticing us at all. The wind was bitter, and hinting of sleet as we crossed the empty, silent street. He was obviously up to the same crap as us, since there could be no other reason for a young white kid to be in downtown Detroit by himself on a cold, grey March morning in the early 2000s.
We finished gearing-up and hurried toward the yawning, darkened hole to make our own hopefully more-nonchalant entrance. In those days downtown Detroit was not the bustling Gilbertopolis of seamless surveillance that it is today; it was a smorgasbord of vacant towers with wide-open entrances, and so little human presence on weekends that you could probably lay down and take a nap in the middle of any given street. And the homeless often did just that.
We used to say that we were going "window-shopping" downtown...that was our euphemism for browsing the weekly selection of what abandoned skyscrapers had a window open for us to get in, or that we could coax our way into easily enough. Back then there were enough of them routinely sitting open to trespass that you could actually be that choosy of a shopper, or even bring your coupons too if needed (i.e., crowbars). These days a little more discretion is called for, and the selection is nothing like it was. In those days of pervasive downtown silence, the sudden sound of peeling plywood could echo clamorously for blocks around, but there was no one there to hear it.
The United Artists Building was the one that had all the colorful graffitied windows, painted in the early 2000s by the United Vandals, or KJ5 (real name Kevin Joy). The "United Vandals" thing was of course a cynical play on the United Artists name.
I'm not sure who first came up with the theory that the Mayan-themed glyphs painted on the windows were done that way in order to represent a calendar to count down to the Mayan doomsday, but the interior of the building was certainly plastered with the number 2012, which was the year of this supposed Mayan apocalypse. It was December 12th, 2012 to be exact, but perhaps because the glyphs were buffed from the windows in 2005 the world did not come to an end on that day. In fact, it only seems to keep getting steadily worse.
Detroit's connection to the Mayan theme comes from architecture found in the Fisher Theater and Vanity Ballroom, which might be where KJ5 drew his inspiration from.
Once inside the front door we noticed that the lobby had been modernized, and reeked of 1960s mod. I apparently did not even bother to take a photo of this lobby. We then found our way into a strange, wedge-shaped alley with a door leading into the theater portion of the building.
Upon crossing the threshold, the most jaw-dropping sight I had yet beheld in all my days of exploring abandoned buildings opened up before me with a suddenness I was not prepared for. We stood, gaping stupidly in disbelief beside the stage area of the most cavernous, monumental, otherworldly space any of us had ever laid eyes on.
It was a moment I won't forget as long as I live...a thin, blue stream of light briefly trickled in through the hole in the roof, shining through the oculus directly onto the rotted stage like a ghostly limelight, and as our eyes adjusted we could make out from its ambient luminescence the mind-bogglingly extravagant ornamentation lavished on the interior of this world-class theater.
