Comments on: Invisible Frontier

Invisible Frontier

sodalinda — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:43:08 -0800

Consider: a man in a suit on the roof of the Pan Am/Met Life Building. Yeah, that's a real photograph. Continuing the ever popular theme of urban exploration, the Jinx Magazine guys have documented some of their more audacious adventures. (warning: flash on the last link)

By: swerve

swerve — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:08:42 -0800

The first picture made me run for the Klonopin. Just ... wow. (But their dry-cleaning bills must be astounding.)

By: jonson

jonson — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:10:51 -0800

Okay, the first link is a jpg, albeit a great one, and the second link is just to a relevant post on Mefi, but the third link, which seems to be the point of the post, is just to a publicity site about the book with a link to how you can purchase it and a brief excerpt?

By: thebabelfish

thebabelfish — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:14:32 -0800

Uh, is it just me, or are that guy's legs, um, bent? (At the bottom, near his ankles)

By: anastasiav

anastasiav — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 15:40:07 -0800

thebabelfish, I'm pretty sure what you're seeing there is the curve of the back of his pants leg as the wind whips at it. You see similar things in photos of para-jumpers.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:18:19 -0800

He's like those alien dudes in that horrible Charlie Sheen sci-fi movie whose name escapes me now but which featured aliens who looked like humans but whose knees bent the other way and boy, it sucked.

By: jonson

jonson — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:30:45 -0800

The Arrival

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:33:53 -0800

Weird! I used to play exactly where that photo was taken. I changed subway lines, from the 6 to the 7, at Grand Central coming home every day of junior high and high school. At some point when I was in 10th grade - this would be 1981 - a friend of mine who doing his senior year work-study on the fifth floor of the Pan Am building discovered that we could get into the VIP club that had served the rooftop heliport until a Sikorsky crashed up there in '77 and they closed it. All we had to do was take the elevator to 58 and walk up the fire stair two flights. We started exploring the vast empty club daily after school - the "Sky Club" had filled the top two floors of the building, which were connected by a long escalator, now stopped - and another escalator, even longer, led to the heliport's empty waiting and control room, where an abandoned air-traffic radio still squalked. From there it was easy to push open the sliding glass doors to the roof, and that's where we spent many afternoons - even in winter, since the huge ventilation grilles blew warm air year-round. It was a great place to take a girl. We revelled in the view, particularly of the Chrysler Building's fabled spire just across Lexington Avenue. I don't think those wire gratings were there then - you could lie on the roof with your head over the edge and look straight down the side. I remember taking a lot of leaks off whichever was the lee side of the roof. The west half of the roof is sunken about 30 feet and holds the A/C and ventilation fans in huge ducts and boxes that we crawled all through, but there's a catwalk around from which the views of the Hudson and Jersey are... well, about the same as those from the public deck at the Empire State Building. And I remember my friend Shep on some drunken afternoon throwing a length of chain off the south side, where it might, I think, easily have broken through the glass roof of Grand Central's waiting room - what a dick. I don't think any of us ever stood on the rail though. I guess I'm going to have to read this book...

By: dg

dg — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:41:19 -0800

www.jinxmagazine.com Temporarily Unavailable This account has surpassed its bandwidth allocation at the present time. Damn click-hungry MeFites. Your search - cache:http://www.jinxmagazine.com/... did not match any documents. Grumble grumble, snarl, whine.

By: thebabelfish

thebabelfish — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 17:21:27 -0800

I have a copy of the image if someone has a server... (sorry, but any I have access to are small, shared boxes).

By: swerve

swerve — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 19:00:34 -0800

Here's the picture. I hope they get the site back up soon. It was cool, and I'd probably buy their book.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 20:20:45 -0800

I don't think those wire gratings were there then - you could lie on the roof with your head over the edge and look straight down the side. *shudders* *retches* *toes curling in* It's like that recurrent dream I have about the suspension bridge... *shudders again*

By: ig

ig — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 21:05:02 -0800

hmm.... i have some base jumping friends that would love to be there...

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 21:34:53 -0800

Christ, nicwolf, that's exciting and all, but weren't there some fierce winds up there? I've got no problem hanging out on the ledge of a building when there's no wind, but at that height, you can easily get a huge gust that could either throw you off balance, or simply push you off altogether. Looking at the photo, it appears his feet may be tethered to the grating (notice the two small black ribbon-like objects directly below his feet).

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 21:44:15 -0800

Every day I see examples of things that people do for fun that I could not be paid an obscene amount of money to do. Standing on top of a rail, which is on top of a skyscraper, is certainly one of those things.

By: swerve

swerve — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 21:47:57 -0800

Heh. Anyone see "Fearless"?

By: bluno

bluno — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 22:15:37 -0800

the jinxmagazine link is down b/c bandwitdth usage.... but nicwolf, your post made it more than worth it.... wsounds like that was a great place.

By: gen

gen — Tue, 29 Jul 2003 00:52:32 -0800

Wow, nicwolff, what a cool only-in-NYC story! You paint a very vivid/memorable picture.

By: dyaseen

dyaseen — Tue, 29 Jul 2003 06:16:56 -0800

Yikes. Mustn't have been much wind that day...

By: dg

dg — Tue, 29 Jul 2003 15:13:00 -0800

Looking at the photo, it appears his feet may be tethered to the grating (notice the two small black ribbon-like objects directly below his feet). Yeah, I noticed that too, Civil_Disobedient and wondered if there had been some PhotoShoppery to remove traces of some form of safety device. But then I am an old sceptic, so what wold I know?