SO. SECRET ROOM UPDATES.
Did another preliminary exploration because I got a heavy duty flashlight and at least an n95 mask, so felt safe enough to poke my head in farther to get a better scope of what that back room was like in preperation for a potentially much longer exploration. Sadly, no entrance to secret underground mob tunnels.
None that I can get through, at least. More on that later.
The room did end a little ways farther back, not into the building next to us, but a fair amount. It’s essentially one very long, narrow rectangle. What it looks like happened is our office building actually used to be several separate, smaller buildings. Over the course of the century, my guess is about the 90s when it seems the major renovations took place, they basically closed off the alleyways between the buildings to cannibalize them into one larger office building. Not that out of the ordinary, I suspect that’s happened to nearly all of the historical buildings downtown.
The fascinating part to that though: because they essentially sealed off those alleyways, they have essentially preserved the outside architecture of the original buildings, secreted away inside this storeroom. I wouldn’t call it well preserved, they obviously did not have historicity in mind when doing renovations, but it does mean that all of the original brickwork and exterior designs can still be seen, whereas with the rest of the building, they were either plastered over into the more modern look, or maybe even demolished entirely. You can still see the stonework where the windows would have sat! And, to return to the previous mention of tunnels, there are multiple sealed doorways.
They were sealed over in crappy plaster and I can’t describe how badly I want to take a crowbar to them and open them up to see what’s on the other side. Some of them are wearing around the edges, and through tiny holes, I could see there’s a void on the other side. Alas, unless I could somehow convince the building owner to tear down some walls for no reason other than curiosity, they shall remain sealed.
Also interesting, I found old tilework under the layers of dirt and dust in that back room, very crumbly and badly preserved but definitely the originals, so the alleyway between the two buildings used to be paved in these cute terracotta tiles.
The second fascinating part: this was only the right side of the room. The left side, the side I had originally dismissed as being uninteresting, had quite the discoveries to be made!
Making my way back from gaping at the sealed doors and romantically envisioning myself busting through them into the legendary underground tunnels, I spotted a ladder. I had noticed the left side of the room had a different ceiling that was much shorter than the other side that had a very large, high ceiling, and from the looks of peering underneath it, had assumed construction workers had just added some barebones layers of planks to make an extra half-story to add more storage space to the room. Unable to resist the call of the ladder, I carefully climbed up. I wouldn’t call it the most stable of ladders, but moreso because of the high angle that I couldn’t adjust because of all the shit around the floor, and not so much because of the quality as it was fairly sturdy, if definitely still a very old, OLD wooden ladder.
Some scribbles done at work to give you a top-down and side perspective of the room. The top one was done yesterday, hence the big question marks. The wall ended just past them..
I got to the top of the ladder and peered around and realized this was not some makeshift level or scaffolding the construction workers had added on, this was the original roof to the ground story. And thus the floor of the second story. Still there.
And best of all, it looked like there was an unsealed doorway at the very end, across the floor.
Alas, it was not, but before I found that out, I crossed the floor on all fours to evenly distribute my weight, and while I’m certain it could have easily held someone taller and heavier than myself, I really did not want to take any chances on a century-old uncared-for ceiling. So I reached the end, passing some... stacked school desks...??
That hole in the floor is where the light from the “room” underneath is passing through.
It was not an open passage like I had hoped, but it had a treasure all of its own. Still stuck to the bit of interior wall that was left after it was sealed off was the original wallpaper. Crumbly and dusty and every piece that flaked off felt like I had ruined a bit of the dead sea scrolls. It was very mundane and not especially beautiful or anything, but the fact that it was still there, after potentially a hundred years, and still in almost full colors, made it a treasure to me.
Sorry the pics are blurry, my phone camera absolutely refused to adjust in the dark light.
Thus ended my adventure. Not as long or dramatic as I had hoped it might be, but for an urban explorer, finding something like this is the adventure itself.
Was genuinely expecting to find mummified rat remains. Didn’t find any! I consider that a plus.
Today was a great day. 9/10, would crawl around in the dirt like this again. Point docked for the hideous wood rot smell the permeated everything. But overall, fantastic experience! Obviously now I need to go fulfill my true destiny and abscond into the Seattle Underground to become the true spider-crawling cave demon I was meant to be.