Once, a long time ago, I went in to the security desk, and asked if they gave tours. They gave me an email, which I emailed, and was told that the building had been sold and there would be no more tours.
I went in and asked the same question to different security guards at different times. I was brushed off. One time, though, on my way out, I pulled open an improperly closed employees-only door, used a nearby bathroom, and was getting ready to begin my explore, when the security guard I'd just spoken to appeared and asked what the heck I thought I was up to.
Many times over the past few months I've walked or bicycled slowly past the open bay doors, but there was always a security guard stationed at each one.
Then, this week, one of the bays was being guarded by a mere dude in a plaid jacket; and I saw a little colorful arrow in another bay door, the kind that points to film sets. Opportunity!
Some locked entrances on the other side of the building were posted with a sort of directory: "Production office, 7th floor; prop department, 6th floor; Circus, 1st floor; Crew park, basement."
So I entered, once again, the door leading up to the security booth, and said I was looking for the circus. Could I get in here, or did I have to go around to the crew park entrance on the other side of the building?
"What's your name?"
I gave them my name.
"Okay, just print your name here, and sign here, and I'll fill in the rest. Take those stairs down two flights to get to the circus."
"Which stairs? These? Thanks!"
I immediately went four flights down and found a propped-open door covered with "Authorized Personnel Only" and other warnings. I peered inside to a kind of engineer's office, which, with the computer still on and a reflective vest hanging on one chair, seemed in-use, or recently vacated, so I went back up one floor.
And came out in the basement, which appeared at a glance to be little more than a big, largely empty parkade. I was standing right in front of a security camera, which made me think: Maybe I should go through the motions of "reporting" to the circus, in the unlikely event that anyone's watching me on the cameras. So I sort of meandered around to the elevators and rode them up one floor. I followed some arrows ("Come join the circus!") past some big derelict machinery, nodded at a guy coming out of a big room filled with props and equipment (and about three other guys), then went back the way I came. Good enough. I didn't see any other cameras. I rode the elevator up to the 7th floor.
This floor was more bustling. Offices, audition rooms, what might have been small sets, meeting rooms, empty rooms ... Without too much gawking, I walked purposefully down the length of the hallway, saw a guy doing something in the far stairwell, and turned back. After using the washroom, I went up the nearer stairwell and pushed open a door to find myself on the roof.
Looking three floors down to the lower roof:
I took the stairs down to the 6th floor, which was more offices. Most of the doors were closed. I don't think I saw but I may have heard some people on this floor. Several doors had nameplates beside them: "Prof. Cornelius Stewmash" and "Prof. Yanif Purpledew" (e.g.). I couldn't think when, or why this floor would ever have been some university's off-campus office space. Later, I supposed that the hallway was itself part of a set.
(I only realized near the end of my exploration that there were not one but two productions filming in the building. Looking them up online after I got home, I learned that one is a CBC production about spies who get into romantic relationships with their targets, and another is a pilot for some NBC supernatural thriller.)
I went down the far stairwell to the fifth floor, which opens onto the lower roof, where the basketball court and helipad used to be (probably not simultaneously).
On the other side, there was a little rooftop patio. Moving back indoors, I found what used to be a cafeteria, a lot of empty offices,
a former fitness room,
and a few imitation hospital rooms! (One sign in the hallway read, "Isolation Ward.")
This floor was deserted. It was now about six p.m., and I hoped the building would only get emptier.
I went down a double flight of stairs and came out on a big empty hangar-like floor. The photos (especially crappy cell-phone photos) don't do justice to the size of this place.
Many of these pillars had digital clocks attached (now broken or turned off). A couple of yellow alarm lights were slowly rotating (which made me foolishly nervous). I slowly circled the perimeter of the floor, trying doors.
Some stairs led up to a mezzanine level of empty spaces and a couple of doorless washroom areas. There were a lot of drinking fountains around.
In opposite corners I found what must have been staff lounge areas.
There were a few empty offices along one wall, above which was another similar mezzanine.
I went down another double flight of stairs to the third floor, which was a lot like the fourth, but with a larger office area. Some signs showed this to be the other production office, i.e. for the second production, so, though the door appeared unlocked, I didn't go inside, in case there were still people around.
Most of the floors are connected by escalators (now dormant), even up to the office levels.
I flipped a lightswitch, braved some "Authorized Personnel Only" signs, and climbed a steep stair to the third-floor mezzanine level, also described as the "storage" level.
A couple of doors here opened onto narrow, dimly lit corridors --
-- which were actually suspended above the third floor below, as you could tell by the occasional hole in the metal floor, or these weird slanted peepholes, that seemed designed to let people spy on the workers below:
One of these corridors led me all the way across the ceiling, via a cramped valve room, and out into the bathroom mezzanine on the opposite side, through a door I assumed had been a locked janitor's closet or something. Like a secret tunnel!
Another completely dark corridor (the knee-level lightbulbs were all burnt out past the first corner) took me on a winding route, over a big duct, to a sort of ladder in a chute or chimney, going one floor down, or two floors up. I didn't think holding my keychain flashlight in my mouth was going to work very well, so I turned back -- then remembered I happened to have my bike light in my backpack. So I climbed up the ladder, opened a door, and looked out on -- of course -- the fourth floor. Climbed higher and found myself in a dead-end corridor, whose only purpose seemed to be those little angled peepholes looking down on the workspace below. Here's the hanging corridor from below:
I knew that the second floor was where security was, so I decided at this point to go back down to the basement and try to find the mythical tunnel. I'd been told by a CanPost employee that it had been filled in with cement, but I still wanted to see it. I crossed the basement level parking lot and went back down to the sub-basement engineer's office.
Still empty. One door said "Chief Engineer," another opened into a big machine room. "Ear Protection required beyond this point." I didn't have any ear protection, and didn't see any laying around, and it didn't seem too loud, so I went in anyway.
There were a couple of workshops, a tool room, and a door leading someplace dark but ultimately uninteresting.
I climbed a different set of stairs and came out into the basement again -- just as a security guard on a bicycle passed by. He didn't even glance at me, though I was obviously exiting from a locked off-limits area. (Perhaps that proved I had the right to be there; how else could I have gotten in?)
A little nervously, as people were starting to get in their cars and drive out past me now, I made my way to another stairwell and up to the first floor, where I tried some doors and kept well away from the circus. Then I went back down to the basement and found the tunnel in plain sight.
The photo didn't turn out, but there wasn't much to see. A ramp led down about two feet to a rough platform of cement, which extended like a sidewalk to the wall, where the top half of an arched doorway, also filled with cement, could be seen.
After ascertaining that the second floor was open to the view of the security booth, I let myself out of the building by one of the stairwells -- setting off a loud alarm in the process.
I'd been inside for just under two hours. I've never had so much fun. Partly I was pleased with myself for getting past security; partly my enjoyment was due to my long period of anticipation; but it's also a huge and interesting building, semi-abandoned, with lots of big spaces to see, but also lots of nooks and crannies to explore. I didn't see everything, but I saw a lot.
