Notre Dame the Hard Way

I have just rung the bell of the Notre Dame. It's probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

Notre Dame towers: view from the spire. Photo by Steve Duncan

It’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done because I haven’t paid an admission fee and queued up to get to the bell. You can’t – this isn’t the part of the building they let tourists into. I’m not a historian, or preservationist, or bell tuner invited up by the Cathedral. I’m not a priest, or docent, or security guard with keys and curiosity.

No, what I have done is met a strange Frenchman at a bar, gotten dead drunk, and proceeded to use a combination of gargoyles, flying buttresses, and a makeshift ladder to scale the outside of the Cathedral in the middle of the night. In the rain. For no particular reason other than the spire is up there, and we’re down here, and this seems to be the best way to get there. And after finally making it up, I just can’t resist the urge to play Quasimodo. Now I’m hearing “Bon soir?” from one story down below. I take a moment to assess the situation. I'm about to get arrested. In a foreign country. On top of the most famous Cathedral in the world. Drunk. How did I end up here?

Notre Dame Terrace. Photo by Steve Duncan

When Steve and I first meet Nico at the bar, we were fairly unimpressed. He looked like a preppy, not a badass urban adventurer, and was drinking a glass of Red Wine to boot. But I guess in France even badass urban adventurers dress like Zack Morris and drink Merlot before attempting a death-defying climb up a world landmark. We chat for a bit, and then decided to head out to see what we can find. We’ve got to warm up a little first.

After we meet Nico we start the boozing. It’s still kind of early, so Nico suggests we hit an underground canal near the Bastille stop. Steve and I know it well – it’s one of the first places we went during our first trip to Paris. The problem is that while last time there was a broken padlock that let us bypass the gate, tonight the lock’s been repaired. Nico explains that this is no problem – he climbs up the gate, grabs a tiny ledge, maneuvers around a corner and goes hand over hand by his fingertips 15 feet above the canal before swinging around the other side. Not a move your average preppy could do. Steve and I follow, and we’re in.

Canal St. Martin. Photo by Steve Duncan

The canal St. Martin is not all that interesting, but it gets us started. We find a connection to the sewers, somehow manage to pop a 200 pound manhole to get back to the street, and discuss the next stop. "There's a church I've been looking at where I think we can do a climb" Nico says in his Parisian accent. "Let's walk this way." Cool - we head south, nipping generously at the flask of whiskey we've been carrying. It isn't until we hop the short fence into the yard a half-hour later that I realize the "church" Nico's talking about is the Notre-fucking-Dame. By time I get to having second thoughts, we're already up on the second terrace. As I struggle up the last few gargoyles to the spire, I even start to let myself think that this was actually a good idea.

Obligatory vanity picture - in the spire of the Notre Dame. Photo by Steve Duncan

Surely giving the bell a little chime would be an appropriate celebration of our accomplishment, no? Unfortunately, the combination of being both heavily drunk and a totally inexperienced bell ringer lead my intended "little chime" to probably be heard at Sacre Coeur 2 miles north, not to mention wherever the security guards happened to be hanging out. Steve stares at me in a mixture of disbelief and disgust as a few minutes later we see flashlights coming up the ladder below us. I remember to never again let myself think stuff like this is a good idea.

It all ends up being very civil. While back in the U.S. I’d be ready for a “get down on the ground, motherfucker!” over in France law enforcement seems to take a much less antagonistic view of curious urbanists. The whole thing has the vibe of a necessary, if slightly unpleasant, interaction between two reasonable parties. They take away my pocketknife and Steve’s Leatherman, but don't even handcuff us as they lead us out. It’s almost as cool as going up – we’re in the attic of the Notre Dame. The supports of the huge lead roof are made out of wood, and I wonder how old it is, and if it has to be replaced. I notice it looks pretty much like the attic of a regular old wood-frame house, except on a much grander scale. Nico even tries to snap a picture of us as we’re walking through it, but it doesn’t come out. The cops don’t seem to mind. We’re put in a wagon, and taken over to the nearest station. It’s right across the street. No wonder we got caught.

We sit on a bench as they try to figure out what to do with us. I'm counting on Nico to tell us what’s going on, but all he can gather is that they’re out making sure we didn’t graffiti up the place. After a little while they have us take a breathalyzer test. Despite the amount of time since we’ve been boozing, and the sobering effects of exercise, adrenaline, and police encounters, I still feel pretty drunk. Not tipsy, not buzzed, drunk. I score a .14 on the test. Steve scores a .32. Nico scores a .68.“I was born in Russia” he shrugs.

We sweat it out for a bit until the chief finally gets thereWith cops, timing is a lot of it. It appears to be shift-change time. This means one of two things – either the cops just want to get out of there and go home, or they want to keep us there, so that they have to stay and get overtime. I’m praying that the legendary laziness of French civil servants that I’ve heard about is true.

The chief comes back. He’s wearing slacks and a casual button-down shirt, and appears not to have shaved for three or four days. First he takes Steve into a room with him. It’s about 10 minutes. Then he comes back for me. I try to figure out how I’m going to sublet my place back home from a French jail cell.

He takes me in the room and we sit down. “So,” he asks in barely accented English “did you get good pictures?” I contemplate my answer. I have no idea if this is friendly banter or the beginning of a dastardly interrogation. “I’m not a photographer” I answer. He takes my name, address, and a few other pieces of information. Then he pulls out a piece of paper.

“OK, so you are tourists, you’re taking pictures, you don’t know you can’t climb the Cathedral, you’re very sorry, and you won’t do it again. The report will stay here, you can go.Sign this.” I can’t believe it. I look at the paper and use a combination of common sense and a general knowledge of Romance languages to determine that I’m pretty sure it says exactly what he just said. In just about every other country on Earth you’d have to be crazy to sign a statement some cop puts in front of you that you can’t even read. But everything I’ve learned says that France is just different. I sign the paper, and sit out in the lobby while they talk to Nico. After another ten minutes Nico comes out. He's followed by the chief, who says “voila,” tosses the pen over his shoulder, and lackadaisically strolls into the other room. It is the most French thing I have ever seen.

Steve is waiting down the street. “They even let me keep the pictures” he says with amazement. "The chief said he wanted us to have a nice memory of our vacation here.” I’m sure if we were Algerian kids from the Banlieues the situation would have been much different, but for the moment I think France is the greatest country on earth.

So how do you celebrate after something like this? You go climb another church of course.

South tower of St. Ambroise. Photo by Steve Duncan

The triumphant trio takes a victory lap.

The White Whale Lives

Like captain Ahab, we all have our particular White Whales we chase. Mine is an abandoned bridge in Buenos Aires. I can’t explain it. You’re either one of the small subset of people who see this and drool at the thought of climbing it, or you’re not.

I first encountered the Puente Transbordador (also known as the Puente Avellaneda Antigua) during my first trip to Buenos Aires. It didn’t turn out so great. I don’t really know when I first got it in my head I had to climb this thing - maybe because it was the first interesting structure I ran into in Buenos Aires. As is evidenced from the link above, it’s in a not-so-great part of town, but that’s not why I didn’t want to go at night. I really wanted the views - the Bombanera (the Boca Junior soccer club's stadium), downtown, the port. It’s also definitely not so structurally sound anymore, but I wasn’t really worried about how to climb it or falling - I was worried about getting arrested. More specifically, I was worried about getting arrested in a foreign country.

Knowing the local culture is a big, and underrated, part of going interesting places. In Paris or New York, I wouldn’t have thought twice about climbing the thing. Not because I wouldn’t get caught, but because I would know what to do it I was. In Argentina, I had no clue. Local gossip had it that the police were all lazy and corrupt, but what that meant in practicality I didn’t know. That they’d just let me go? That I should try to bribe them? That they’d haul me down to the station and throw me in jail where I’d quickly be forgotten about? That I’d end up being hustled for thousands of dollars by various bureaucrats and officials to get out of the situation? I never felt comfortable enough doing it during my stay in 2005, but I had resolved that one day, I would. After rolling back into town I had 24 hours to figure it out before I left for Northern Argentina. And in addition to the bridge, I wanted some good views I hadn’t been able to find last time. Luckily, I met an adorable Swedish tourist, and we decided to spend some time seeing what rooftops we could get onto.

When in a strange city (or a familiar one for that matter) hotels are almost always your best bet for easily accessible rooftops. After a couple of false starts, we decided to hit the Sheraton near the Retiro train station north of downtown. In most non-English speaking countries, no matter how you’re dressed, no matter how fancy the hotel, if you walk in speaking English you’re almost always left alone. Here was no exception - we made out way out onto the roof with no problems at all.

Now, when you have a evening in Buenos Aires with the company of a lovely lady, you don’t spend it climbing abandoned bridges. We spent the night dancing the tango in San Telmo, and after my companion had left early the next morning, I resolved to give the bridge one last shot before I had to leave. Unfortunately, sometimes these adventures are anti-climactic. Stationed right out front were these guys: not even cops, but naval officers.

I had one small hope though, which was that maybe this town, like Paris, was sufficiently Latin enough to just let me do whatever I wanted. After all, this is a town where a cabby’s favorite move while stopped at a red light is to pull into the oncoming traffic lane, pull around the cars in front of him, and blow right through the light - cops around or no. I went right up to the naval officers and told them I was climbing up the bridge to take pictures. I wasn’t really surprised when, despite my self-assurance, I was met with a resounding “no you aren’t.”

I still kind of regret not just doing it. Forget about beautiful Swedes, angry naval officers, cultural uncertainly - there's a bridge to climb! Still, during moments like these - and they come for all of us - it’s always good to remember that the White Whale did end up killing Ahab.

Hidden Art

After chatting a bit with the residents, we headed into the old mansion.

As far as abandonment went it was pretty standard. The most interesting thing were the murals, some of which commemorated the expulsion of the residents of the abandoned building. They reminded me of the murals in the Amtrak Tunnel on the west side of Manhattan commemorating the exodus of the homeless residents there (I don't know why some of the writing is in English). "Saudades" somewhat translates as "longing melancholy nostalgia," but far from perfectly. In the second picture, above the heart, is an example of "pixacao," a graffiti writing style native to Sao Paulo.

There were also some of the distinctive blue designs by the artist Zezao, who's most famous for painting throughout the sewers, and generally only paints in similarly out-of-the-way places.

This is one of the most rewarding things about going exploring - the ability to see things other people don’t, or even can’t. What it is isn’t even that important. Any explorer type who says they don’t get at least a small kick from the exclusiveness of going places you aren’t allowed to is lying. It wasn't quite on par with what you find in the Paris catacombs, but it was nevertheless quite interesting.

A few more murals:

I left happy, saying goodbye to Nieva on the way out, and also finding another little friend in another mural on the outside of the building.

Abandonment

Abandonment is vastly different in different cities. In economically strong cities like the New York, abandonment is generally simply a transitional phase - it’s only a matter of time before the building is either restored or torn down to make way for something new. In cities that have a little shakier economies, but a general sense of optimism, abandonment is an investment. Old buildings are secured until it’s profitable to restore or replace them. In cities with bad economies and population decline, abandonment is simply part of the general urban landscape.

Exploring abandonment in these three types of cities is different. In the first kind, where abandonment is actually fairly active, you’re generally looking for a friendly worker to let you in, or some kind of easy unsecured entrance during inactive times. The second type of abandonment is the toughest. An inactive site leads to none of the many possibilities of entry there are when a site is continually being entered and exited, and structurally changed. However, the fact that it is also perceived as having potential value leads it to generally be heavily secured and sealed (at least by abandoned building standards). Fencing is added and topped with barbed wire, entrances are sealed with cinderblock, occasionally security guards are stationed there. These are the ones that take a little work. In the third type of city, exploring is generally as easy as walking down the street and going the hole in the wall.

These three types of abandonment, however, only really apply to the cities of North America and Western Europe. Today, many, many cities in South America (and I’m sure in other parts of the world I haven’t visited) follow a very different pattern. Despite depressed or only mildly vibrant economies, there is enormous population growth and a huge housing crunch. This leads to a different type of abandonment - one in which the buildings aren’t really abandoned, but populated informally by various communities - drug users, homeless families, or other types of assorted squatters. This is the case with the abandoned coffee baron’s mansion that we are going to visit in Sao Paulo - as well as pretty much every other abandoned building of significance.


This type of abandonment was also fairly prevalent in the New York City of yesterday. New York never experienced the heavy depopulation of other large Northeastern and Midwestern cities. At it’s worst, New York’s population was only off about 15% from its peak. Compare this to Detroit, St. Louis, Buffalo, Cleveland, and numerous other cities that are down 50% or more from their peak populations. As a result, there is simply not much of a housing crunch in these cities, as the urban infrastructure greatly outnumbers the population. Sure, you might run into some empty buildings used as shooting galleries or populated by squatters in these towns, but not that much. The reason is simply because there’s a lot more empty buildings than there is need for them. In New York, even at its worst this was never the case. In addition to less depopulation, abandoned (or even occupied) buildings were much more likely to be torched for insurance money, rendering them uninhabitable, even to the homeless.

The abandoned coffee mansion is actually also in the same condition. Water damage has led to the city declaring an emergency evacuation of the squatters. The result is an abandoned building, and a thriving shantytown behind the gates in the yard.

The folks in PreservaSP have been there before, and know some of the inhabitants. They call off the barking dogs (there to keep out drug users, not curious urbanists) and let us in. We bring some presents, and chat for a bit with the residents before heading in.

The most interesting thing I learn from a resident named Nieva is that this is not actually a residence of last resort. Apparently the city has offered them housing virtually for free - the problem being that it’s about three hours away. The residents opted to stay instead - many people had jobs and connections downtown that they had to be near. This demonstrates the enduring problem of the South American megopolis.

Many people in New York complain about the poor getting forced out of neighborhoods with convenient access to Manhattan. While this is somewhat true, it is nothing on the level of South American cities. Lack of affordable housing, lack of transport (Sao Paulo has three subway lines for 20 million people), bad planning leading to heavy traffic, and many times the physical structure of the city (most notably in Rio) all conspire to lead to a horrible commute - especially for those reliant on public transportation. It’s not even an option - who can take 25% of their time in traffic? The folks would rather stay in a shantytown than endure it. A good bit of perspective for those people in New York that complain about being forced to move 2 subway stops further out into Brooklyn.

Tightrope on top of Sao Paulo

On my last day in Sao Paulo I decide to head up one more observation deck, the Edificio Italia downtown. The Edificio Italia was erected by Sao Paulo’s Italian community (hence the name), and has both a restaurant and an observation deck at the top. Contrary to what a lot of guidebooks say, you don’t need to go to the restaurant in order to go to the observation deck if you go at certain times of the day. I head up there for the view, but end up encountering Gabriel, one of my companions from PreservaSP, and his friend Guto.

The Edificio Italia used to be the tallest building not just in Sao Paulo, but all of Brazil. That honor now belongs to the Mirante do Vale, a residential building a little ways away. Downtown Sao Paulo is somewhat hilly, and despite being the tallest building it actually ends up being lower than some others due to do it being constructed in a valley. Still, we decided to see if they’d let us up on the roof.

Sao Paulo is kind of schitzophrenic when it comes to residential security. Middle-class people tend to live in 30-40 story high-rises surrounded by fences, sometime topped with barbed or even electrified wires, and staffed 24-7 by security guards. You might think this would make for difficult access to the roofs of residential buildings. But no, we simply go up to reception and ask, and 5 minutes later a janitor is escorting us up. The elevators have an interesting transport philosophy - they stop halfway between two floors, with either a half-flight walk up or down stairs to get to the floor. This leads to half as many potential stops, and at least theoretically, less transportation time.

We go to the top floor, walk up a flight of stairs, and the janitor unlocks the door. But we aren't on the roof yet. It turns out the top five stories don’t exist. Not empty floors, but non-existent floors. No floors, no ceilings, no walls. Just five-foot wide ledges surrounding nothing. We get up to the roof, half of which is actually a Helicopter Landing pad. The view is spectacular.

Top 5 stories of the Mirante do Vale

Helicopter landing pad on the roof

View northeast of the Edificios BANESPA and Banco do Brasil

View South - you can see the antennas of Avenida Paulista off in the distance

Looking down on the Viaduto Santa Ifigenia

The janitor hangs out while we go trampsing onto the other half - the aforementioned five-foot wide ledge. No guardrails, no nothing, with a 50-foot drop on one side, and 500-foot drop on the other. I cannot imagine anywhere in the United States letting us do this - for free no less.


No liability insurance - no problem!

Guto checking the camera

Guto and Gabriel

We hang out for a while, tip the janitor 10 Reals (about 4 dollars), and head back down. One more reason to love Brazil.

Observation Deck Blues

I’ve been frustrated with observation decks in New York for some time now. There’s about a dozen buildings or structures that used to have public observation decks that are now closed, or used for private space. I’ve managed to get up a few of them, but it’s always been of the unofficial variety: going out a window of an abandoned office in the Williamsburg Saving Bank building,climbing what remains of the rusted stairs in the 1964 World’s Fair towers in Flushing, Queens, and (my favorite) spending a romantic night watching the 4th of July fireworks after climbing the scaffolding to the top of the Prison Martyrs Monument in Ft. Greene Park.

There’s also been a few others I’ve been able to head up to during an event or after a friend has gotten me into the building. But trying to just talk your way in cold is pretty much an exercise in futility. It seems like the city is conspiring to keep you off its heights.

In New York City, one of the top tourist destinations in the world, there’s two public observation decks. While the views are great, both cost way too much, and one regularly has hours-long lines. The pattern for them, and for most touristy observation decks I’ve visited, seems to be to jazz stuff up with a lot of bells and whistles, charge a ton of money, and advertise it as an “experience” (A good tourist rule of thumb is to skip anything that advertises itself as an “experience”). That’s what happened with the Rockefeller Center Observation deck, and it’s what’s currently happening with the under-renovation Empire State Building. Of course they didn’t hesitate to take the first step - raising prices exorbitantly - before actually completing any of the renovations.

Here’s what people want from an observation deck - to be up high, have an unobstructed view of the city, and be able to snap a few pictures. They don’t want $20 souvenir photos of them superimposed in front of the building. They don’t want talking elevators. They don’t want a tzotzke shop the size of Rhode Island to walk through before getting to the deck.

Luckily, all that garbage goes out the window in Sao Paulo. I made it up to half a dozen rooftops when I was there, and best of all never paid a dime. Some are your standard touristy observation decks (although free of charge). Some are only open sporadically or - as is standard in Latin countries - seemingly at the whim of whoever happens to be on duty. Some are private, but simply a matter of asking building management to let you up. I had been up one of the official ones - the Edificio Martinelli - on my previous trip to Sao Paulo, and hit a couple others - the Edificio Italia and Altino Arantes on this trip.

View from the Edificio Italia - they'll also let you up the building in the foreground if you ask.

View from the Edificio Italia looking down.

View south from Altino Arantes - aka the BANESPA building.

View southwest from Altino Arantes.

These were all in the old downtown, affording only somewhat different views of the city. Luckily, I also got up to a rooftop bar in the Avenida Paulista area a few miles south, affording a gorgeous view of the row of rooftop antennas that is a Sao Paulo skyline landmark.

There’s been talk of removing the antennas (which are located among the skyscrapers on Avenida Paulista because the avenue is geographically the highest point in Sao Paulo), and replacing them with one large antenna, similar to the CN Tower or Seattle Space needle, but I personally hope this doesn’t happen. Even thought the antennas are somewhat outdated and not terrible aesthetic, they are an interesting identifying feature of the skyline and entire city. For a town that doesn’t do a great job marketing itself, some kind of unique identity is always a plus.

If you are visiting Sao Paulo, this next advice is imperative - do not believe what you read in guidebooks or on the Internet concerning what's open and allows visitors and what doesn't. What you read might be right, it might be half right, it might be officially-factually-correct-but-not-at-all-relevant-to-actual-reality, or it might be dead wrong. Whenever travelling, it's always best to check these things out for yourself, but this goes double in Sao Paulo. I've never seen the guidebooks and websites be so inaccurate about basic tourist info as in Sao Paulo.

With one day to go in town, I was pretty satisfied with the views I'd had. But the best rooftop surprise was still yet to come…

Kindred Spirits in Sao Paulo

He is a well-dressed fellow, tall and somewhat balding. Somewhat nervous, he speaks fluent English with a clipped Portuguese accent. He pretty much resembles a successful Brazilian businessman, which he is, running an import-export shop. He does not look like the type of guy who spends his spare time bribing security guards and making his way through shantytowns in order to explore abandoned buildings in downtown Sao Paulo.

Still, this is what Jorge does with much of his spare time. It’s what we are planning to do the night I arrive in Sao Paulo. However, about an hour after I arrive the rain starts, and does not let up. The abandoned mansion we were planning on going has recently been condemned due to water damage - it’s not safe at all in this kind of weather. We’ll have to wait. Jorge tells me the mansion used to belong to a coffee baron a century ago, when this now-rundown part of downtown Sao Paulo had been the ritzy area, known as the Champ Elysees of the city.

Jorge had introduced me to a couple other people in his exploration/architecture group, PreservaSP, including Gabriel and Jose Rodolpho, who would later show me around the town. We were at a posh function at a museum downtown, where I picked up the latest demographic reports on the neighborhoods of Sao Paulo. Unfortunately they were (obviously) in Portuguese, but I still manage to figure out enough to grasp a reasonable social and demographic picture of the area.

I loved the juxtaposition of being at a fancy event, knowing later we were supposed to be exploring old dilapidated buildings. I’ve always gotten along best with the people that embrace all facets of a city. Jorge’s group was mainly an architectural and preservation group, but were always up for a conversation or exploration on anything that had to do with cities. I felt an immediate professional kinship with them as fellow urbanists.

A lot of people I’ve trampsed around cities with have a certain inability to see or respect anything beyond their particular interests. Explorer types don’t see the point in wandering the streets - indeed some have a rather disdainful view of anything that doesn’t involve trespassing, while more highbrow types seem to think that the guts of what actually make a city run are unimportant next to architectural detailing and landscaped parks. People interested in how a city is structured aren’t interested in actually having a conversation with the people who live there, and people interested in the communities and social aspects of a city don’t understand that the physical structure of the city plays a large role in dictating how these develop.

What frustrates me the most are people who think the only areas in an entire city worth visiting are populated (or about to be populated) by people like themselves, or worse, don’t even really realize that there’s dozens of neighborhoods and millions of people for whom their life and neighborhood is completely irrelevant. I understand that everyone has different abilities and limits of what they feel comfortable with, and that not everyone is going to be able or willing to walk for hours in unfamiliar areas, or climb bridges in the middle of the night, or strike up random conversations with the Ecuadorian guy next to you at the lunch counter. But I’ve always found it hard to respect people that don’t even show an interest in parts of the city that are outside their zone of familiarity, or even worse, think that they have a complete knowledge of the entire city based on the narrow part they do know well.

That’s why it was so rewarding to spend time with the folks I met in Sao Paulo. I spent several days conversing, exploring, and debating pretty much all aspects of Sao Paulo. And I also got to do a slight bit of benign trespassing - including the aforementioned Sugar Mansion…