NYC Rappels

Putting my experience playing GTA: Vice City for years to work I pulled onto the BQE with two passengers, cutting traffic and ogling the security measures on the Verrazano as we crossed into Staten Island. The $11 cover charge for that oversized landfill was paid in exact change and we made our way to the huge gas tanks we’d seen on the way into the city a few days earlier.

We walked through the woods on a very well worn path and came to the base of one of the things. The ground was strewn with old empty cans of Montana, Molotow, and Krylon and a band of graffiti as high as one could reach encircled the base. We climbed the stairs, took a look around and started setting up the rope.

I went over first so I could set up the camera from across the way on the other tank and was able to snap three photos of the descent.

We packed the rope and got back in the car. Trying to make it back to Brooklyn before the sun set proved frustrating when we hit rush hour traffic and though progress was slow, we indeed made it to our second target before that orange orb disappeared below the horizon.

The Port Authority Grain Terminal was certainly not the fist silos I had gotten into but the view from the top of this one was the best I’d seen from similar structures. After we were done clicking away at the cityscape a rope was set up for a rap down into a void between four of the silos. We estimated it at about 150 feet. Only having two harnesses I let the other two go.

Once they were down I undid the rope and took the stairs. We made our exit and went on to other things. The night was just getting started.