The street was empty, the night almost still. The condominium tower loomed above me, black against the lambent, overcast sky. It looked vast and abandoned, but of course it was only incomplete; no one had moved in yet. I wanted to climb its thirty-odd storeys, and look around at my city, Vancouver, from its rooftop. I had seen a security guard in his car on the opposite side of the building, but I decided to take my chances. I hopped—stepped, really—over the fence from some neighboring stairs, and walked with brisk composure to the nearest lighted stairwell leading down to the undeground parkade, from which I hoped to find another stairwell leading up. My palms were sweaty, my extremities tingling, and I instantly needed to pee. I took some deep breaths and reminded myself that I wasn’t doing anything bad, that my only crime was curiosity.

I had been doing this sort of thing—urban exploration, infiltration, recreational trespass—for about a year. I had got inside hotel pools, tunnels, attics, abandoned hospital wings, staff-only areas, boiler rooms, storm drains, and several other construction sites. But it was still scary and exhilarating.

My introduction to urban exploration had come from Access All Areas, a user’s guide to the hobby by the Toronto-based zinemaker Ninjalicious (aka Jeff Chapman), best known for his groundbreaking publication Infiltration: the zine about going places you’re not supposed to go. Chapman produced twenty-five issues between 1996 and 2005, when he passed away at age thirty-one from cancer. He’s largely considered one of the founders of an online urban exploration community that still thrives (see, for example, the zine’s web archive, infiltration.org, and Urban Exploration Resource, uer.ca).

Access All Areas and Infiltration were a revelation for me, not only for Ninjalicious’s well-crafted prose, his enthusiasm, or his humor, but the sheer joyous innocence that he exudes. It’s clear from his stories that he simply loves turning doorknobs, peering into dark rooms, squeezing into crawlspaces, climbing around on things, and figuring out how to get from here to there, or how this connects to that. Steam tunnels and machine rooms that only a film location scout could love he describes as “valve paradise” and “pipey goodness.” The city, in his writings, becomes a playground and a beguiling labyrinth. He too, like all of us, gets some thrill of excitement at evading the powers that be, but his primary motivation is not to defy authority, and his default method is not to skulk or sneak like a ninja.

In Issue 10, he admits, “I’m caught all the time.... I just smile, shrug, and leave, in a way that says, ‘Ya got me, I’ve learned my lesson, goodbye.’ I humbly walk, not run, away and live to explore another day.” In Issue 24, he climbs the dome of Maple Leaf Gardens in broad daylight: “I was fairly confident that no fewer than a thousand people were watching me intently from the high-rises that encircle the Gardens, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Zipping up my coat and pretending to speak something into my phone for the benefit of my imagined audience, I grabbed the rungs and began to climb.” And in Issue 12, he gains access to the TTR offices at Union Station by simply waiting outside a locked door for ten minutes, until “an employee finally emerged, and I prepared to accept the open door from him. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, clearly employing the phrase in its ‘can-I-hinder-you’ sense. I said, ‘I’m supposed to be meeting someone on the fourth floor.’ ‘How do I know you’re supposed to be in here? I mean, you don’t look bad or anything ...’ I laughed and said, “Thank you, you neither.’ He smiled, weakening. ‘Okay, go ahead.’”

I think the average person has to overcome a great deal of inner resistance even to pass through a door marked “Employees Only” or “No Public Access.” We all silently acknowledge that, if we have no business someplace, we must be up to no good. But it was this assumption, ingrained by my superego into my very muscles and nerves, that I was now consciously trying to fight. I had come to view urban exploration not only as a fun way to see cool things, a kind of extreme local tourism, but also as a practice like zen, or what Alan Watts called a way of liberation: a way to see through and shake off some of society’s more useless constraints. The painter Fairfield Porter once said that if you are arrogant, to sign your paintings is arrogant, and so is to leave your paintings unsigned; if you are not arrogant, signing your paintings is not arrogant, nor is leaving your paintings unsigned. The same is true for going places you’re not supposed to go: If you are innocent, even trespassing is an innocent pastime.

“You should try to behave like a stereotypical Texan,” Ninjalicious says in Access All Areas. “Smile and wave at people who make even tentative eye contact. Speak loudly and laugh frequently. Make it clear as can be that you’re not trying to hide or go unnoticed, but that you want to share all that you have to offer with the world.” This is not only a good strategy when exploring places you technically have no business to be. It’s also a wonderful way to go through life.

I saw the security guard, and he saw me, as soon as I entered the parkade. I waved, smiled, called “Hi there,” and went over to talk to him. I told him the truth: that I’d hopped the fence, hoping to get a view from the roof. He was more sadly puzzled than officious or irate.

“You don’t seem like a troublemaker,” he said.

I’m not.

From broken pencil magazine.

I was in Las Vegas recently for a week of vacation, and had a great time just looking around the mega-hotels, which are humongous labyrinths of casino, hotel, and shopping mall. I quite recommend just wandering around, gawking at the lobbies, hallways, and other common areas, some of which are gorgeous, and as richly designed and ornamented as palaces. If you want to get away from the crowds of other gawkers, you often don't have to go further than the nearest "convention center." But the real fun begins when you start infiltrating.

If you limited yourself to unmarked and unlocked doors, ignoring all those that politely advise you "Authorized Personnel Only," "Staff Only," "Emergency Exit Only," etc., you'd still find a million to try. I only went through a couple dozen, but I managed to discover all kinds of interesting places, including a cavernous storage room (a former or unfinished ballroom?), a rooftop pool and wet lounge, an abandoned theatre, a rusting incomplete hotel tower under a faux-facade tarpaulin, a penthouse restaurant and club being renovated, and a couple of exclusive members' lounges with free food and drink (I helped myself to a little free food). Of about eight hotel roofs that I tried to get onto, I succeeded with two (including the tallest building in Vegas, which is almost exactly as tall as the tallest skyscraper here in Vancouver). One out of four is a pretty good ratio. Indeed, security in Vegas seems more lax than most office buildings here. These hotel resorts are so huge, and have so much traffic moving through them at all hours, that it's probably impossible to keep them really secure. A few hotel guest elevators have security guards stationed outside of them, who ask to see your keycard, and a few have employees stationed at the entrance to their courtyard pools, but there are many back doors or roundabout POEs for just about anywhere you want to go. Very few elevators seem to require keycards, and you can usually get access to them from another level (try the convention level, or the spa). I enjoyed being clever and indirect, but I think you could also get a lot of mileage by simply staggering obliviously past people or through doors, with a beer bottle in hand. It's what everybody else in Vegas seems to be doing.

p.s. The Riviera, closed since May but apparently in semi-use by police and firefighter trainees, would be tremendous fun to get inside. Even more so the massive never-quite-completed hotel to the north of it, which surely must be the largest empty building I have ever seen. I circled it longingly in the sweltering heat several times, but the sight of onsite security at the open gate deterred me from trying to hop any fences. Though I don't think it would be impossible. If I were a local, I'd be cruising that place once a week.

The easiest rooftop I've ever accessed:

To be honest, this photo was not taken from the rooftop, but from the penthouse Gold Members' Lounge.

And this one from a stairwell.

And for good measure, one from the basement of the domestic terminal.

One of my new favorite places to explore. There's a lot to see, but also a lot of people around, so I didn't whip out my camera much. I was amazed by how many off-limits areas are "secured" by nothing more than a do-not-enter / authorized-personnel-only sign. (To be fair, I don't think I ever found myself on the far side of security.) And I found a lot of unlocked or improperly closed doors. Next time I'll dress a little less like a tourist, a little more like an office drone, or perhaps a construction worker.

I broke my own rule, and wandered inside an (newly) active condo, which was just too appealing with its doors propped open.

Inside the "Lantern" at the top of the building

I'd been up here once before, at night, before construction was completed.

I always go back to the WBNS whenever I'm in the neighborhood.

Majestic view from three floors up, I think F. Fwd building on UBC campus.

Not quite a rooftop, but a stairwell window in I think Sprc Hs building.

And for good measure, a tiny piece of the fabled steam service tunnels:

Sometimes doors just aren't securely locked. I thought for sure this was my entrance into the whole labyrinth, but this tunnel ran the length of a building, and had a ladder leading up to another short corridor, which ended in a sprinkler valve room -- as I learned by the sign after I left it.

More hotel rooftopping, this time in Burnaby, thanks to some construction on the penthouse floor, and lots of doors left open.

Looking down on BCIT with contempt.

A not-bad week of exploring.

After sitting in a gritty hottub at Sndmn Sgntr hotel in Richmond (which was nevertheless wide open to infiltrators), I made my way to Sea Island and got on this hotel's rooftop:

There were fire exit doors leading out to the roof marked "Emergency Exit: Alarm Will Sound" but they lied.

A few days later on a weekend afternoon, I strolled into a condo construction site in the heart of Metrotown carrying my bag of groceries. This was one of the last towers in the neighborhood that I hadn't been able to get inside yet. It was a somewhat roundabout entry from an adjacent parkade where only construction personnel are supposed to park, but on the weekend it was empty, it was easy to ignore the signs, and a naive person could quite plausibly just have found themselves inside the fencing, and decide to take a little look around. Or climb the 41 flights to the roof and drink in the view.

I didn't have even my crappy cell-phone camera, though.

A few days later, up at SFU, I found my way into the Nvrsty Thtre through an improperly closed door -- just that easy.

The basement seems semi-abandoned. There's a dirty dance studio, a couple of empty rehearsal rooms, a former recording studio (I think), and dingy dressing rooms.

I moved this chair into place from another room and played a couple of songs on this unloved piano:

I looked all around the upstairs theatre, too, backstage and even above stage in the catwalks, but the photos I took were too dark. But I sure enjoyed myself.

Tls Grdn was a fun explore, largely because I just strolled in the wide-open loading dock late one weekend afternoon. I think there was a "Be back in 10 minutes" sign. The place seemed totally empty, and I had to snoop around quite a lot looking for a stairwell up to the rooftop.

I worked a few days recently as an extra, or "background talent," on some TV film sets. Mostly as a lark, out of curiosity, for a little money, but also to do some exploring.

I think I've retired. I did get inside some buildings not normally open to the public, but while there for the job, I found it hard to sneak away and snoop around. That is to say, it would have been easy, but I felt duty-bound to be "on call" in extras holding, because you never know when they're going to call you to the set.

As a job, I found it to be fun and interesting about 10% of the day, and tedious and boring 90%. I don't mind being paid to sit around and do nothing, and can entertain myself, but the worst is that you're hardly ever told what's going on, why you're waiting, when/if lunch will be, when your day might be over, etc. So you end up feeling like cattle.

Also, the early call times are killer. I hate early mornings. And sometimes you're staying up till 11 p.m. to get an email telling you your call time, which may be five or six in the morning. I don't know how people in the industry do it.

I did learn, I think, how easy it would be to infiltrate a film shoot. Considering all the people involved at different levels, I think it is virtually impossible that any one person could know everyone who is supposed to be on the property. When I arrived, no one ever asked me who I was or what I was there for. If anyone did, I think all you'd have to do is mutter "background" or "BG." As usual for infiltration, a look of bored entitlement should get you just about anywhere -- even the lunch truck!

I hope to try this out in Vancouver, where there's often a lot of shooting. And it's pilot season now ...

I'm also daydreaming about printing some "location scout" business cards, which could conceivably be used to get you into all sorts of places. "Could I talk to your building manager? How much do you charge to film from the roof? And could I take a few pictures?" I might need a nicer camera first, to make this plausible.