Picture a parking lot, any regular old slab of asphalt with a few lines painted on it. A single car sits idling at the far edge. Its the middle of the night and nothing else moves. You see another car come barreling into the lot, the driver’s jerky motions behind the wheel throwing off screeches as the rubber grinds along the pavement. Both vehicles parked, four suspicious looking characters emerge. One grabs a large piece of metal from the trunk of his car and they cross the lot. The four of them stop and look down at a manhole cover, the one with the metal bar inserts it into the large round lid and pulls. Quickly and without words the four climb down into the hole, pulling the heavy lid back behind them. It falls into place with a low pitched clank, punctuating the preceding action, and returning the stillness to the scene.

It had been cold outside. So cold that I hadn’t gotten out and explored anything in a couple weeks. So when a friend told me that we could get into a huge active arena I figured it’d be a good place to set up a rope swing and try it out. So We stuffed a ton of rope into a bag, grabbed some cameras and headed off.

We started with a group of seven. A knee problem cut us down to six strong before we climbed the fence in groups of two. Our limping man behind took one radio, I took the other. If the authorities rolled up behind us we’d at least know about it. For some this was the first crane, for others it was the tallest, for me it was another that I had had my eye on for some time.

Thats what they manufactured here. HUGE is a good word for this place. Abandoned, dilapidated buildings spaced evenly, so as to avoid the spread of gun-powder fueled fire, as far as the eye could see.