Low-Risk Locations

Urban exploration in St. Louis, Missouri
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Maggs
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Low-Risk Locations

Post by Maggs »

I have a friend who's really interested in urban exploration but is really nervous about the possibilities of legal troubles. I was wondering if anyone had any locations that are low-risk that they are willing to share.
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SubLunar
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RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by SubLunar »

Unfortunately, we've lost a lot of the easy stuff over the years. And we've also got a surge of vandalism going on over the past few years, so as time goes on I think less and less things have become ok to talk about publicly.

This question gets asked a lot but in general most people avoid answering it directly because making lists of things publicly means they're going to get a lot more traffic and more traffic means more problems. There's tons of information in these forums already, though. You just have to dig around and find a location that interests you and then scope it out. And honestly, most stuff isn't terribly safe these days. But the Cotton Belt might be doable. National Candy Company, too.

But really, to explore, you have to accept that getting busted might happen no matter where you go and be prepared for how you'd handle that.
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Re: Low-Risk Locations

Post by Mugen_1 »

The Cottonbelt Depot building is definitely doable...hell the owners actively promote the place on Facebook. Not the coolest building in St. Louis but definitely a good place to start. Spent many days over many years around that building, doing small documentaries on its homeless residents and those that once surrounded it...never once ran into any kind of problem.
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RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by Redwashere »

I may or may not be dating St Louis's most active Street Artist's sister. He knows how to get in and out of anything undetected it seems. He said he even had a bbq in the middle of Cement Land once. Im from the East Side of the river and know a few places over here that arent too bad, but the School is getting torn down and slowly people have become more and more watchful of whats going on around abandoned buildings...
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Maggs
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RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by Maggs »

Went to the Cotton Belt last night, thank you all for the ideas!
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RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by mitts3000 »

Seeing how I live in San Francisco for years and for years had a job as a valet I pride myself on not parking in illegal lots or spots. Long story short I had my car towed while checking out a place all because I was amatuer hour and parked in a private lot.

I thought no one would notice given that it was 5pm on a Sunday.

My friend and I were checking out a place on McRee that if you just drive the lenght of a not so long street here in St. Louis you would easily figure out where I'm talking about.....but long story short, don't park in the private lots around there.
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Nicotti
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Re: Low-Risk Locations

Post by Nicotti »

The burnt part of Crunden-Martin.

And in the winter after the water goes down the USS Inaugural.
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

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mindwaave
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Re: Low-Risk Locations

Post by mindwaave »

This abandoned airstrip I just spotted would probably be pretty low-risk.
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Re: Low-Risk Locations

Post by Nicotti »

mindwaave wrote:This abandoned airstrip I just spotted would probably be pretty low-risk.
Mandi has pics of that place in this forum some place. Prolly 2-4 years ago? I don't remember.
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

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ucitygal
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RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by ucitygal »

National Candy was just bought by UHaul:


Restoration might take years but U-Haul says it is committed to bringing back the historic National Candy Building in St. Louis as a public storage facility.

The building's new name is U-Haul Moving & Storage of Tower Grove South. U-Haul's parent company, Amerco Real Estate Co., bought the building last month for $1.5 million from ICC Investments LLC. The seven-story building is at 4230 Gravois Avenue.

Jeff Lockridge, a U-Haul spokesman, said the Phoenix-based company will begin renting trucks and trailers and offering moving supplies and boxes out of a temporary showroom within two weeks. The facility will eventually have self-storage units, hitch bays, a U-Box storage container warehouse and propane.

Lockridge said Amerco's chairman, Joe Shoen, has twice visited the St. Louis structure and wants to "celebrate the history of the building” by restoring it. A timeline has yet to be determined but the building—vacant more than 20 years and much vandalized—needs lots of repair, Lockridge said.

U-Haul's project on Gravois is similar to its recent renovation of the former Endicott Johnson Shoe warehouse at 418 South Tucker Boulevard downtown.

Lockridge said U-Haul emphasizes buying and renovationg old and often vacant buildings as part of its corporate sustainability initiative. Adaptive reuse of existing structures allows the company to cut the amount of energy and resources required for new-construction material, reduces blight, puts vacant or under-used buildings back in service and preserves architecture, he said.

The National Candy Building, a brick industrial building constructed in 1927, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Re: RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by mindwaave »

ucitygal wrote:or redistributed.
lol

I'd like to see the basement of that place once all the water's been pumped from it...
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ucitygal
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RE: Low-Risk Locations

Post by ucitygal »

Eh - it was behind the paywall - I've figured out a way behind it...

I wanted to share the news with everyone...
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Re: Low-Risk Locations

Post by Meester Beeg »

The abandoned airport is the old Arrowhead airport, closed after the 1993 flood. the last I saw of it there were multiple baseball fields on either side of the runway.
flying in?out of there was sometimes tricky due to Creve Couer Airport's proximity to the north and Spirit being to the south.
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