A few months ago I eventually got up the nerve to enter my first construction site. It's a ~45-floor residential high-rise in a part of Burnaby I like to call Rotown. It's situated in a busy location near a Skytrain station, so I waited till about 1:30 a.m. on a weeknight before putting on my hardhat and squeezing between the padlocked gates. (No security on site.)

I was extremely nervous the whole time. I kept thinking I heard voices, and sirens.

The stairwell was blocked by scaffolding at about the 40th floor (the building wasn't finished yet), so I didn't get on the "roof."

A few days ago, I noticed a section of fence around the site was gone. The only thing keeping would-be explorers out was some caution tape. I figured the building must therefore be locked up tight, but felt obliged to check it out. I grabbed my hardhat, and after being scared off a couple of times by passing vehicles, finally strolled in, trying to act like I owned the place. This was about 11:45 p.m. on a weeknight.

No problem. The place was still wide open. Outwardly, the building appears to be more or less finished now, so I was able to get onto the roof. Here's the same view as the last photo, but from a dozen floors higher. The dark swath beyond the condos is Central Park.

The shell of (one of?) the penthouse apartment(s):

View north.

Enjoying a beer on the roof, my original goal.

It was chilly, and though much less nervous than the first time, I was not relaxed.