Franklin Avenue

Raiders of the Lost Buildings
In his shout out to the Ghost Towers post below, reader Tom points out that empty buildings are a dime a dozen in Detroit, home of the abandoned historic core. (At least in L.A., downtown is becoming "cool." No such luck in the Motor City.)
Speak of the devil, today's L.A. Times has a story out of Detroit about urban explorers, people who thrill to get inside long-abandoned, grand old buildings. It's a nationwide trend, as evidenced by the online zine Infiltration, which calls itself "The Zine About Going Places You're Not Supposed to Go."

Notes the Times: The city of Detroit, which owns many of the old landmarks, has demolished several over the years, including Hudson's department store, once the biggest in the nation. But it can cost more than $10 million to take down a building of such size. And many people, including Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, are reluctant to destroy the grand architecture built when Detroit was on top of the world. So the buildings have sat empty — one for more than three decades. And the heart of downtown — a six-block radius around Woodward Avenue — has become an irresistible playground for urban explorers.

I sure feel that call here in L.A., although so far I've stuck to legal methods--a dance troupe performance at the Ambassador Hotel, a UPN party at the old Herald-Examiner Building, a loft tour organized by the L.A. Conservancy.
But I can definitely relate to the excitement these Detroit explorers-- who call themselves the "Urban Exploration League." For one, I've wanted to explore the abandoned tunnels from the original red car subway. But I'm not quite gutsy enough to just work my way into these buildings yet.