!UPDATE!

Due to new info which we have just uncovered, we know now that this building was part of a Veterans Care/Residental complex known as "The Wing". This building looked to have been used as a preschool, but no other information on it is known at this time. (Updated writeup continues below)

Now we checked out all buildings and found most of them to be boarded up pretty well. That is until we came upon the Essex Pavilion right up at the main road into the The Wing. Not only was there a board missing from the side-door, the front door on the porch was open... apparently somebody had been in there before us. We had to wait quite a while to get inside, as there were quite a lot of people walking their dogs and jogging around the grassy and wooded areas within the The Wing. First of all JohnnyD and Citizen-X went in because it's less suspcious when not in large groups, since sadly people tend to think that everyone entering abandoned places are either going drink, do drugs, or vandalize, which we of course are not. Anyway they checked it out and snapped a few pics, and Flea and I went in after, while Boner stayed outside.

The first thing you see when you enter is a large high-ceilinged room which looked like it could have been the cafeteria or lunchroom at one time. Most of the ceiling material has collapsed here, and the floor is covered in a layer of dust, dirt, and bits of plaster and insulation. There's also a row of old chairs in the middle of the room. Off this room is the main hallway. As previously stated, this was apparently used as a preschool at one time, and as such the walls of the hallway and some of the rooms are covered in (rather disconcerting) children's paintings of people and animals. Along the main hallway are several rooms, such as the cloakroom which was complete with collapsing ceiling and cubbyholes for shoes. As well there was a bathroom with shower stalls off of another small room where a single fluorescent light was still burning weakly... Apparently they never cut power to the place when it was abandoned, so that light must have been on a mighty long time considering the last date on the wall calendar we found was April 1989. Anyway, there's a few more rooms, containing some miscellanious items such as a wastepaper basket, a broom, and other random debris. One of the more interesting rooms was a large classroom with an attached bathroom, and the walls were convered in fullsize paintings of children. Further down the hall was a closet still stocked with paper towels and blankets.

By this time you come to the end of the main hallway, and up to the side door with the busted out board. Now right next to this are the stairs to the basement which Flea and I didn't get to see due to time constraints, but which Citizen-X and JohnnyD did check out on their trip in. The following is Citizen-X's bit about the basement.

- Capone

In the basement there are several different rooms. The first room we came to is a huge room filled with old windows that were probably the windows that were replaced by the boards sealing up the building. Then the next room we came to was a furnace room, it had some pipes and a bunch of other stuff like that. Then there is a hallway with a couple small rooms branching off from it. Then you come to a big room again, this time there is nothing in it other than one of those old basement sinks, which I got a picture of. Other than that there is pretty much nothing of interest in the basement.

- Citizen-X


Trip 2

We decided to go back to the The Wing in hopes of finding an entrance to another of the structures, namely the large and impressive Waterloo Pavilion. Unfortunatly there was no way in. One of the doors was unlocked, but it only led to a short hallway containing a bag of cement mix, and an (unfunctioning) elevator.

However, since Jimbo hadn't seen the Essex Pavilion yet, we decided to take another look in there. We went a lot slower this time, and discovered some new interesting things. Cool stuff like an original attendance sheet still tacked to the wall, a stack of Good Housekeeping magazines dated at 1986, working fire extinguishers, and a moldy soccer ball along with an untouched set of janitor's equipment. We even found that the lights still worked in one of the upstairs rooms (not just a glow, I mean they actually turned on as if the place wasn't a day old), and they also worked in about half of the basement. It's strange to walk into a room covered in peeling paint and inches of dust in an abandoned building and just flick a lightswitch. Looking back, it's quite odd how they never cut power at all. In fact, it seems from the look of the place that they just grabbed the most important stuff and then boarded it up right away. The place is pretty well untouched by other explorers and vandals... hell, there was even toilet paper left in one of the bathrooms, albeit covered in paint chips and cobwebs.

We also found some slight weirdness in the basement this time, now that we made a thorough check of it. In one of the large main rooms, there's a toaster from 1970s vintage sitting in the middle of the floor. The cobwebs are huge, thick, floor-to-ceiling deals here as well. Anyway, there was also the Water Heater Room which also contained a large garbage-can type drum in addition to the heater, and there was another big cement room containing a fuse box and a wooden chair in the corner. The strangeness comes in with the "Handprint Door". Now, this basically looks like somebody had placed their hand in the middle of the door and then painted around it, leaving the shape of their hand in the center. This was found on the back of the door dividing the two basement sections. If this actually was a preschool, I could could see it being one of the kids; but in a damp, unfinished cement basement on the back of a door? Strange. Also of interest was a very old fire alarm box tucked up near the ceiling by the stairwell doors.

As an aside, we now know what exactly the mysterious "thingy" in the Medical Room is (see Gallery), it's an old portable charcoal grill. Thanks to James Campbell for the info.

- Capone

VIEW GALLERY