sha in LA: urban exploration

I had to chuckle last night when I heard that Shaq has a deep thigh bruise. HA! That's nothing compared to MY deep thigh bruise. Trust me, you don't want to see pictures.

It all began about a year ago. I give tours of City Hall. The highlight of the tour is when we go up to the 27th floor observation deck and get a 360º view of Downtown. One day I noticed that across the street from City Hall there was a fenced off empty lot where some kids were skateboarding. Then I noticed that they were skateboarding on something that resembled old marble flooring. It was the footprint of a building that had been demolished. Nothing remained except the original interior marble floor. WOW. My interest was peaked.

This past Saturday afternoon, with digital camera in hand, I decided to go investigate. I climbed over this tall, spike-riddled fence rather easily. There were some skateboarders around doing their thing and I snapped a few photos. Apparently there was underground parking because you could still see the ramp leading down to the closed entrance. It was a little eerie and I wondered about the building that was originally there and when it had been demolished.

The fun part came when I tried to hop the fence to leave. Somehow I didn't have as easy of a time getting out as I did getting in and I got stuck at the top of the fence. Now mind you, there were really sharp points on this fence every 5 inches or so and one got caught on my jeans and was essentially stabbing me in the thigh. A very friendly local homeless man who was nearby came running up to help me and, with his assistance, I was able to jump to safety. He's probably seen that happen one too many times.

This morning I decided to do some photographic investigation on this building. I searced on The Los Angeles Public Library's website in the photo database and came up with this picture. This picture was taken in the 60's and the building was demolished by the mid 80's. If anyone has insight I'd love to know more information.

Now, whenever I sit down, I think fondly back to my adventures this past weekend. A word of advice to others...use the big pink blanket that you have in your trunk to lay over the spike riddled fence and prevent such injuries in the future.