Mike Gilday is an urban explorer who, along with about 75 others, loves to climb down storm sewers to explore the labyrinth of tunnels under St. Paul. Here he climbs out of a storm sewer entrance located in Mounds Park.
Posted on 09/18/2005 2:16:27 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
He calls himself Max Action and, as much as possible, he tries to live up to the name.
He says he has climbed to the top of the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, walked in underground rivers, wandered through abandoned mental hospitals and cartwheeled naked on the stage at Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota.
All in the name of urban exploration, an apparently growing -- and illegal -- subculture in the Twin Cities and around the country in which people break into and wander around forbidden or foreboding places in their cities.
Urban explorers are secretive by nature and at times commit criminal acts, so it's hard to estimate how many are around. But the number of them exploring caves, factories, storm drains, munitions plants, breweries, underground rivers and other places appears to be increasing.
"The underground is getting terribly crowded," said Greg Brick, 42, who calls himself the grandfather of the scores of urban explorers in the Twin Cities. "Everybody and their brother is doing it, and drawing a lot of attention to themselves."
Just last week, St. Paul police arrested three college students for breaking in to the city sewer system near City Hall. The trio, carrying gunpowder and fireworks, said they belong to a group called Urban Invaders.
Two years ago, when the country was at a state of heightened alert, a group of six urban explorers were arrested near the Gopher State ethanol plant in St. Paul. They carried night-vision goggles, two-way radios and other suspicious items.
Charges were not filed in either case. But the incidents did draw the attention of authorities, who view urban exploration as a growing nuisance with a great potential for danger.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Eventually one of these nude cartwheelers is going to get in a pinch and they're going to sue the city for not keeping them from doing the boneheaded things they do. And naturally a Liberal jury will award them millions.
Just another day in paradise.
LOL! Hard to be a cutting-edge innovator when everybody's doing it! I remember reading about this stuff in the WSJ when I was still employed, which makes it at least 10 years ago. Looks like the fad is peaking.
L
Being "underground" and "non-conformist" is just another matter of conformity to a certain group. Nothing too original.
Isn't this stuff really popular in Detroit? I remember reports of parties being held at the top of the abandoned David Broderick tower on weekends, or during Tigers games.
A nice summer rain storm will wash them all out.
A group of us were doing this in the 60's.
An aquaintence wandered around the thin ledge of a New York skyscraper 50 stories up.
I have been to the top of the domes of 4 different state capitals.
Brings back old high school memories of exploring abandoned missle silos in Colorado some 20 years ago. Those places were monstrous and spooky and pitch black!
When I was a kid, we used to walk the storm sewers all the time.
Would save a lot of time getting to some places.
This would have been back in '68 or '69!
Guess we were "ahead of our time"!
Certainly wouldn't hurt, especially if they fine them. Personally, I don't care if people crawl around in sewers or prance nude on stages that aren't being used, but I think the person who mentioned the lawsuit against the city when your "intrepid explorer" hurts is little self is dead-on.
I did the same once or twice when I was in college, when there was an interstate between point A and point B.
LOL "Be an individual,everybodys' doing it"
Awwww, they were just going to celebrate Guye Fawkes Day...
Baaaah! We were doing this sort of stuff thirty years ago.
Wait, make that FORTY years ago. Egads!
I was doing this stuff twenty years ago. My older brother was doing it thirty years ago. Go near any college campus, and you'll find a lot of this going on.
Ah, chicken weinies, come into my garage, you can clean it while you're in there....
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