i’m working living studying in the first gleaming biotech building of a new campus our university is building near the largely vacant eastern dockyards of san francisco. from this first tall building, form the higher floors, i have a visual span of the entire downtown; on another side, i’m eye level with the highway (close enough to point a radar gun and outsource my services to the state police); looking east there is a clear line of sight accross the bay to the creaking mechanical bulls unloading freight at the flourishing dockyards of oakland. our dockyards are largely abandoned, but their skeletal remains are very much the dreams of urban explorers.
one humble warehouse across the street houses the burningman hq. on a recent expedition with friends, we mounted one fence and climbed underneath another and emerged in a graveyard of machinery. on the waterfront stands a vacant monstrosity, grafity skins its interiour and exterior. it is spacious like a hangar so it’s unclear when you enter its dim interior whether other people are there, other urban explorers.
i say this, because it only became apparent later after we boldly proclaimed the space as ours alone, that there were two other people in the warehouse. two “urban youths” were casting rods out of a large gap in the side of the buiding and … actually catching fish.
one of the boys had the same tall skinny lazy perch as snoop dog, and a cap over his cornrowed head. on his long neck in two inch high letterering dark tatoo ink spelled out: FUCK THE POLICE.
“wow, that’s not something you whisper.” i said. and he laughed as he showed us his catch of yellowperch.
among their belongings, i also spotted a stack of stickers which have sprouted all over town. i found this image on the internet now, and reproduce it below:
as seen on cl?