cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/13056300
I’m in the tunnels. About a 15 minute walk. Old hospital that was shut down a few decades ago that is now another business that some may be familiar with. I do maintenance for two, soon to be three sites and I basically babysit a building. Ancient 1800s bullshit that has been decommissioned for god knows how fucking long. Some of those are steam pipes for steam heating and power, now long dead.
Babysit some boilers, swap out a controller or board from a limited supply of domestic parts from businesses that vaporized in the 80s. Babysit RTUs, replace some pump seals every few months because they don’t have water softeners which is a project in itself. Not that iron pipes help anyways
Pretty sure there’s an ammonia system down at the other building that made my fucking eyes bug out. I have no idea what the fuck they’re doing with it or if it gets maintained. Not fuckin touching that.
cooling tower shut off and sensor housing
I have no fucking idea what this room was. Completely abandoned at this point.
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1800s freight elevator with a 1920s pulley that I use.
1953 tag on a pillar
That shit got me. Pretty fucking much.
That’s Gate 2.
Any pics of Gate 1?
Is there a gate 3? How many gates?
I’m secretly hoping only Gate 2 exists.
You are correct only gate 2 exists. Also, it’s hard to see but there’s more pitch black underneath the freight elevator; assuming there’s a sub basement or another floor that I have no idea about. Never was shown, so I am assuming that’s not my jurisdiction or my manager doesn’t know about it.
Amazing.
this is some backrooms shit
the most “backrooms” section is this entire warehouse-office conversion room filled to the brim with various office shelves of wildly varying age set up in a maze pattern so a guy can get in there and move em. It’s quite easy to get lost in the shelf maze
Probably haunted AF. Hook up a sweet sound system
You bet your ass I am. On a slow day, I might sit down there and listen to some slayer after checking all my meters.
The urge to tap those pipes with something metal
They rattle pretty good. Makes an almost beautiful haunting metal wobble sound.
Better draw a big pentagram on the floor of that abandoned room just to be safe.
Sigil practice room
That’s dope as hell; I too would prefer to get exploited by capitalism in an endless maze of untraceable infrastructure instead of being bored. That’s a great set of pipes.
As someone whose job involves walking through
literally that exact type ofvery similar but slightly more modern infrastructure: Meh.Yeah. I worry that some day some of this shit will break down and I’m gonna have to figure out where to get domestic parts for these fucking things. Probably gonna need to hit up the nursing homes and ask Grandpa who worked at the old iron works or the hospital if they had any storage depots off site.
Because we have a bunch of cadavers that need cooling and some ancient laboratories on campus we have a similar pipe system, but because they don’t fucking maintain them atll they are always leaking mystery fluid and covered in condensate. Some of it is held together by literal tin foil. So I suspect that’s what’s gonna happen if something breaks. No one is going to pay for replacement parts.
In most hospitals I’ve worked at they have a bunch of corridors like that too, and it’s always just weird to walk through a maze of concrete.
So I suspect that’s what’s gonna happen if something breaks. No one is going to pay for replacement parts.
I believe that is what shut down this hospital, as well as state money drying up for whatever reason. There’s also some ancient electrical shit down here that was essentially an entire 60s power-plant dedicated to keeping the whole block up and running off these 20 ton diesel generators. The electrical company in the area actually bought out half of it to throw in some transformers for the grid in the old housing for it and just converted some of the equipment. I think the generators died at some point and by the 80s even there was barely any companies making parts for these in the area as industry for that collapsed entirely in the 70s. Some of this shit still runs the building, now hooked up to the grid, and the conduits for them are bigger than my body. Just walking in the room you can feel a slight static.
Yeah there’s no cell signal down here whatsoever. If anything happens to me, I’m fucked but at the same time there’s a reason I carry my cattleman. I would NOT want to fire off a gun in the ironworks room though, shit would ricochet and swiss cheese everything.
That’s definitely a job! How do you feel about it?
I actually really love it. 98% of the time I’m completely alone with my only job being to fix shit and guide contractors to take meter readings. I’m not the type to get spooked easily and as I said in another comment; you are the most dangerous thing down there. You know where everything is and can navigate the building in pitch-black.
Worst I ever got was I sadly had to move a homeless guy sleeping in the court outside because he quite literally was laying on a piece of sidewalk that hadn’t been used in 80 years and was actively crumbling beneath him. Scariest shit was guiding him back in and setting him up with a spot outside underneath one of the fire doors away from the street because I had to basically carry him off of it and that’s the combined weight of two men on a crumbling concrete floor over a 8 foot drop onto solid iron, boilers and 140 degree pipework. Guy was cool, gave him a rice krispie from my lunch and a cigarette.
sometimes i work in this building from the early 1900s, i think. its basement is connected to some other civic infrastructure via this steam heating set of huge pipes. i don’t really get it, but its got this crazy awt if huge pipes in the basement.
it’s a whole big deal when that heating system is turned on. like part of the first floor of the building shakes as this big conduit expands with being warmed.
i was there when it happened last time and i thought somebody was wailing on a support bean with a 25 lb sledge, but it just kept getting louder and it was like a metronome. thought some shit was about to blow the fuck up, but then it just stopped.
Oh and the ammonia system scares me, I gotta get photos for that but I have no idea if the shit is still active or anything. If a leak ever occurs, I have to somehow crawl out six inches from the ground as all the air is displaced down to the floor.
sometimes i work in this building from the early 1900s, i think.
Yup. Some of the building is 1920s, the pictures I had are parts from the 1890s.
i was there when it happened last time and i thought somebody was wailing on a support bean with a 25 lb sledge, but it just kept getting louder and it was like a metronome. thought some shit was about to blow the fuck up, but then it just stopped.
Air trapped inside somewhere; could blow up one day. Is there a bleed valve on the top floor connected to the handlers for it?? Also need to know if it’s water system, combo, or steam. Steam can make some funny noises and that shit lasted for 100 years so.
i think. its basement is connected to some other civic infrastructure via this steam heating set of huge pipes.
Pretty much how this place is too, we have multiple side-rooms that are just 1900s rusting iron beams supporting part of the sidewalk for major walkways in the city. City knows, they shrug, another day.
It’s a huuuuge building, more than eight stories connected to multiple storefronts; including an abandoned 50s department store; across the block with the “catacombs” underneath it that I was taking pictures of. Most of this pipe shit supplied old steam power and heat to those buildings. Now it all sits and rots.
Also figured you might like these photos; when you post about work I usually like it because it’s the same shit I do.
People like your job so much, they made a videogame out of it. (“Infra” it’s more about inspection than maintenance, but close enough)
I will totally check that out. I was actually thinking of a b-movie cheese horror movie down here where a maintenance guy gets a call at 2am on a weekend from a strange voice asking to fix the decommissioned steam vents. Roll up, building is pitch black and he gotta get into the catacombs to flip the master breaker.
End up hunted by vampires, but then it becomes a reverse-thriller where the maintenance man starts killing vampires with 1800s equipment. Bisecting a vampire with a freight lift, smashing a vamp head with a pump block, etc.
Usually the attitude I carry in places like these is that you’re the most dangerous thing there. You know the lay-out, you know where everything is and you can easily walk the catacombs in pitch black and know exactly where you left your pipe wrench…
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
when we have to rebuild society I shall be the guy that dies the gruesome 1800s industrial death on the commune working on the steam turbines we rebuilt out of 1800s asbestos iron piping.
