Buffalo NY- Concrete Central Grain Silos - a climb to the top

23770 Views 25 Replies 13 Participants Last post by TheoryDaGoat, May 12, 2020

HotRodKid

Discussion Starter · May 2, 2008 (Edited)

few pics from my weekend, and a long read if u want the story

on a whim, me and 4 friends decided to do some urban exploring, the target was
a local grain tower called "concrete central", the objective was to explore, and to possibly reach the top

of the 5 of us, 2 of us decided to make the climb to the top, the path up was the "joe cart"
seen below. 100+ feet worth of old rusty steel.

Concrete Central closed its doors in the 60's, and in 1976 2 girls fell to their death
here while "playing" inside. The response by the city was to cut the steps
off of the
stairs to keep people from accessing the tops of the grain towers

almost all the stairs were removed from the stairwell inside the building, and the
first 30 feet of stairs was removed in each of the 3 Joe carts

our path up was one of the joe carts. we climbed the exterior of the cart till we
reached a level that still had the tread risers and railings from the staircase, we then
switched to climbing up by using the railings and risers as our path,

we shied away from using the stair treads themselves, as the clips on the risers
were very well rusted , in some cases the tread risers were perforated with rust
around the steps, putting weigh on those steps would have surely resulted in a
40+ foot fall down the center of these industrial dinosaurs

When we reached the low roof, we shimmied across some i beams till we were
able to jump the gap and land on the roof

after a quick exploration of the 1st floor of the roof top shanty, we proceeded
up the stairs in this section of the building to the very top floor, where i snapped
the pics of the surrounding area. quite a view, even if its just buffalo NY

we returned to the first floor of the shanty and poked around some more. we
soon realized
that the concrete "floor" wasn't really a floor at all, just a meager
layer
of concrete over some plywood layed across the tops of the silos. the only reinforcements
were NOT a lattice of rebar, but just some steel "T's spaced
2 feet
apart. the "floor" was literally shifting beneath our feet.

While carefully walking across the floor, i watched as one of the sections shifted
down about a 1/4 inch as it let out a few small snaps and pops.

great, concrete so weak a mere 170 pounds is all it takes to move a 1000 pound
section of concrete

we decided to use the remains of the inside staircase to make our descent. as it
was slightly better shielded from the weather all these years. The decision was rather
tough, as the first 4 levels down were clearly visible, and there were only 2 or 3 steps
left attached anymore, everything else having been torched out long ago.

we slowly started to work our way down, holding the railings and walking down the
tread risers on the sides. $ levels down we reach a problem ... theres only ONE floppy
railing, one tread riser, and nothing to brace off of on the other side.

i said a quick prayer to the car gods, grabbed the railing, put both feet on the one
riser, and let my feet slide down the riser. a hot step around the railing where its
attached the riser 1/2 way down and keep on sliding. the one though running through my
mind is how and WHERE im going to bail to if this railing gives ... turns out there weren't
many options, as i realize that if i land hard on the next landing the concrete will most
likely fail. and so will the railing just past it ... ugh

some skill, some luck, all adrenalin, and some cool pictures to boot

view from the parking area

view from the path

the joe carts, used for moving the grain to and from ships

view from the low roof, 100+ feet up, reached by climbing up stairs w/ rusted treads

far end roof, opposite from downtown buffalo

view down the backside of the building from near the top of the joe cart

more complete view looking at the building from the parking area

top of the joe cart, looking at downtown

and heres the top of the silos, this is the floor below the top "shanty section" and runs the full length of the building

as you can see, the floor isnt doing to well, and its realy hard to judge if your standing
on top of one of the small steel beams in the floor, if your on top of one of the silo
walls, or if your standing over thin air

so we walked on the conveyor belts, hoping if the concrete gave the conveyor
belt would save us ... but in all honesty it was pretty dry rotted ... we were just hoping
any bad floor had strong conveyor belt over it, lol

the top of the "shanty" looking down all 4 floors of it, along with some of the
holes in
the floor down there.

if yuo look to the upper right youll see "CJM" spraypainted on the beam,
behind that
over the machinery back there is where the roof access holes
are, right
over that slopped section of the machinery ... failure while climbing
onto the
top roff would resulting in falling the entire length of this pic (50 feet is the best i can figure)