After saying goodbye to HI-LITE we fled the heavy Canada Day crowds toward Mississauga. We were supposed to meet up with Archer and Terapr0 to climb what I had been calling the hourglass building. I had seen its distinctive shape from the highway as we cruised into Toronto the previous evening. The edges of each floor were closer or farther from the core than the next, making the lines of the building curve in and out. While this unique profile made the building easy to spot in the sunset from other rooftops, finding it in a car at night proved a bit tricky and I had to rely on the locals to get a fix on it. I pulled up and parked at the base of a finished condo tower next door to the target and saw archer sitting in his car.
I leaned against the car wearing my girlfriend’s undersized jacket talking to Archer while Bounce tried to get some sleep inside the car. We were waiting on Terapro to show up when a drunk couple started an argument down the street. It quickly escalated and soon the guy was shoving the chick against the car door and threatening strangulation. More annoyed than outraged I sighed. Archer called the cops and when the chick ran into the parking garage across the street the guy followed out of sight. I just wanted these people to go away so I could climb my building. But making sure I could still see them both I walked towards the garage. The woman came back out to her car and when she saw Archer on the phone she yelled for her drunk boyfriend and bitched at us for calling the cops. They peeled out and disappeared around the corner just as a squad car turned down the street toward us. I let Archer do the talking and soon the cops left.
Satisfied that the cops were gone for good we stepped over the wall into the grounds. It still being Canada Day the place was totally deserted. We walked casually across the lot, weaving between materials and equipment. We went up an open staircase at the edge of the first floor and were then hidden inside the building. It wasn’t a long climb by itself but having been up over one hundred flights of stairs in the last week it was a might difficult. The roof was still a floppy patchwork of corrugated steel sheeting and rebar which gave under our weight. Terapro and I made our way up the red and white crane while Archer stayed on the roof.
I clipped my harness into the wire and walked down the jib. I knew that the protruding jib would make a good vantage point to get perspective on the unique shape of the building. As I sat down on a cross member a few feet from the tip I saw that I was right. Using electrical tape I fastened my tripod to the steel tubing of the jib and set up a shot. After clicking the shutter I realized that on one of the balconies of the near top floor of the occupied condo next door sat a group of people playing cards. They were probably less than 150 feet away, 300 feet above the ground. We all were sharing nearly the same space and they had no idea. I could see them clearly but they did not notice me. These situations are one of the really fun parts of this hobby. I carefully packed up and walked back down the jib and we headed down the stairs. I said goodbye to my Canadian hosts and got back in the car. I had a three hour drive to Niagara to make.
We woke around 10am. I wanted some granola bars. We had none in the car. We found a wal-mart, closed for Canada day. A couple different grocery stores, closed for Canada day. “Well fuck the food, I need some batteries.” Canadian Tire? Closed for Canada day. Shit. We met up with HI-LITE again for some draining. Out in suburbia we sat on the grass and waited for Archer. A bit later we were lifting up the grill on a big concrete pipe and heading into the darkness. This drain was adequately entertaining with a few changes from concrete to corrugated metal and a pair of elevation changes in the form of stairs. We sloshed around for a couple hours. The Canadian crew queried about my new light which I had picked up from Lowe’s a few days earlier. It was small but bright as fuck and all for around $20.
From this drain we split from the Canadians and went and tracked down a famous part of Toronto underground known as Gargantua. On the advice of a Brit who had visited some time back we found a manhole in the middle of a grass lot and down we went. It was a long walk before the twin box tunnels, of which I had seen plenty already, opened up into a rather large circular tunnel. For a pure storm drain this tunnel certainly lives up to its name. This was like treading down the Hollywood walk of fame of the drainer’s world. Many a respected elder drainer had tread this same curved concrete. It was a hall of greatness.
After crawling back out of the ground and replacing the heavy steel lid we got back in the car and at last found an open pharmacy. I sat in the car sipping chocolate milk and smearing peanut butter on bread with an old credit card. This was shaping up to be a pretty good day. We drove back to the waterfront and the heavy pedestrian traffic that was already building made getting a parking spot take some time. But we found a nice, free spot, and started eyeing spots from which to watch the impending fireworks. The crowds were quite orderly, all the men had their shirts on, nobody looked drunk. These Canadians clearly didn’t know how to celebrate their patriotism. I was convinced the riots of a few days prior must have been incited by my own countrymen.
The Malt was surrounded by people. We hopped the fence out of view but couldn’t find a way in that wouldn’t get us seen by less than twenty of them. We went back over the fence and kept walking. We found a crane. Posted on the fence around the site were big signs. “Beware, Attack Dogs on Site.” Laughable. Guard dogs are illegal in most American states and I wagered the Canadians would have similar rules. A few bangs on the fence and some shouting fortified my assumption. When such things are declared so loudly, “Warning, area under surveillance” They are almost always total lies. Real cameras and real dogs speak for themselves, cheap signs are a dead giveaway that no other security exists and only serves as a joke to explorers and the less moral types. We made it up the crane just in time to catch the fireworks. Though farther away than the Malt would have been it was still a good vantage point and I always like it better a few stories up anyway.
It was the tallest crane in Toronto. We walked a narrow path between the fence and another building. Through a hole in the plywood I could see the lot in front of the target. Two cars sat beside the job site trailer. Fuck, guards. This wasn’t much of a setback, however, for in back of the site was a door in the perimeter wall. Below the door was a gap about a foot high which was just high enough for us to squeeze under. I went under first to see if there was any way into the building from the back. To go around to any other side would have put us in view of either the security or a busy sidewalk. I found an unlocked door and went back to signal the others. They passed me their packs and then shoved themselves through the hole.
We found a flight of stairs quickly and quietly. Upon the treads sat a section of scaffolding around which we had to carefully navigate. With each clang and thud we made getting through we knew we could possibly alert the guards to our presence. We got through it, turned the corner, and found another set in front of us. More tip towing and unwanted noise and we were through an climbing a meandering stairwell. I was stoked. I knew the likely hood of running into a worker or guard at the higher levels was low. The top was ours for the taking. We took a break every ten floors for catching breath and rehydrating, a stack of drywall forty stories up is a pretty sweet place to sit and chill for a few minutes. As we were climbing one of the last flights of stairs I looked up to see a man staring right at me.
A split second of terror gripped me. Any moment this guy was going to start screaming about cops and get the fuck out and we would have to run like hell. When I realized that I was looking at my own reflection I felt pretty damn stupid. The roof of this building was a slanted plane of glass and the angle made it look as though my reflection was standing just above me on the top floor. Minutes later I was standing at the base of the crane and realizing that the extra shirt I had put on was far too little to keep out the biting wind. The crane itself was lit up like a christmas tree but being over 50 stories up it didn’t trouble us. One would need a telescope to see us climbing the few sections of ladder to the top.
Cold! How could it be so cold in July? I shut it out nonetheless and took in the view. To my left the main cluster of Toronto seemed small. The CN tower o my right did not. 50 stories up and in comparison to that soaring needle we might as well have been at street level. The lake was a huge expanse of black in front of me and suburban Canada stretched out behind. The intense light from below bounced photons off the white cross members of the boom and into the camera’s sensor with nice results.
On our way out I was grateful to be back out of the wind and by the time we were back on the ground and out the fence I was pretty beat. After a brief walk and a shake of hands with local explorer Archer, we got back to the car to get some sleep. Tomorrow was Canada Day, and we wanted plenty of energy to take advantage.
In Mexico when a construction job finishes or stalls the equipment sometimes just gets left to sit. Sometimes for years. Instead of renting or paying a crane company for its services they buy the machines and hire their own operators. If nobody is buying cranes they sit and rot. Such is the case with these two. Both have sat for at least a year, rotating slowly in the wind coming off the sea. Having no litigation in country and no longer any concerned owners they are easy targets for the curious.
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…with the exception of an incredibly low to the ground tower crane on the magnificent mile this was the only tall crane in the city that we could see. A testament to the boom-gone-bust nature of the construction industry here and in many other parts of the world. But thats another matter for a different website.
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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.
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As you can see, No Promise Of Safety has a new look. We’ve moved from WordPress.com over to our own, more independent host. As a consequence some of your old links will no longer work. The old domain, uliveandyouburn.wordpress.com, will no longer host this site. We’ve put up ads through Google’s adsense program. Call us corporate whores if you like We really don’t care. We’re still experimenting with the look and layout so bear with us. If you visit sometime in the next couple weeks and the site is down or looks all a fuck, come back later.
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“Look! a Waffle House!” We had been driving around for about an hour trying to find a food joint open on thanksgiving. We sat down, ate, and waited for DJ Craig and Aurelie to show up so we could roll out to the next objective of the night. A convoy back toward downtown was in order and we were soon standing on a sidewalk, looking across the street at a fence and a 52 story condo tower under construction behind it. Traffic cleared for a moment and the four of us were over the fence in a flash.
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