My buddy Shawn and I pulled into a little town in upstate New York just before 11AM on January 16, 2015 — eager to explore the abandoned hotel on the top of the hill. The hotel is a massive 5 story structure that’s rotting away, just off of Main Street. This particular morning it was snowing and temperatures were dropping. We didn’t care, we were on a mission. We walked around the perimeter of the building and noticed that all of the fire escapes had been removed and every door, window and opening had been completely sealed. Or so we thought. We walked around one more time and noticed one section where the plywood had been removed. We crawled inside and found ourselves in a small room that led into the hotel kitchen.
Jackpot!
Inside it looked like a giant movie set — something James Cameron would drool over. Even though this place had been closed for many years, it was amazing how much stuff was left behind. In the kitchen were stacks of dishes, coffee pots, cereal bowls, and a even a jacket hanging on a hook. Amazing place, trapped in time. And we had so much more to cover.
Inside it looked like a giant movie set — something James Cameron would drool over. Even though this place had been closed for many years, it was amazing how much stuff was left behind. In the kitchen were stacks of dishes, coffee pots, cereal bowls, and a even a jacket hanging on a hook. Amazing place, trapped in time. And we had so much more to cover.
We made our way from the kitchen into the dining hall. Wow! The light coming through the windows was perfect and even though most of the tables and chairs were broken and scattered around, you could easily picture what the place looked like in its heyday, full of life and activity. It was very quiet in the hotel, and on this particular morning, you could hear a pin drop. It was only 12°, but we didn't notice, or maybe we didn't care.
From the dining room, we headed across the dark lobby into the hotel ballroom — an enormous room filled with more broken chairs and tables, as well as a stage at the far end. We snapped a bunch of pictures and then headed behind the stage where there was a bathroom and some offices. This area was ransacked, with paperwork scattered everywhere.
It was now 12PM and I had already taken 65 pictures.
That’s when we heard it:
Zzzzzzziiit.
Zzzzzzzziiit.
It sounded far away at first so we ignored it. Then a few minutes later we heard it again.
Zzzzzzziiit.
Zzzzzzzziiit.
Shawn said it sounded like a 3-inch screw going into a piece of wood. Huh? What? Where? I peeked through a tiny, little hole and outside, about 10 feet away, was a large man with a cordless electric screwdriver. He was outside, removing the wooden boards blocking a door. Those screws were coming out.
Holy fucking shit.
What do we do now? Hide? Pray? Run? Where do we run to? Who do we pray to? Where do we hide? He was right outside, removing the fucking door. Surely, we’d have to run past him to get back to the kitchen. By the time I peeked through the hole again, he was gone. But wait a minute, we could still hear that sound.
Zzzzzzziiit.
Zzzzzzzziiit.
Oh shit, he was now inside the hotel and he was boarding up the door he came in — trapping us inside with him. Holy mother fucking shit.
Like Michael Myers in Halloween, this big, scary man in a hoodie stepped slowly into view. I froze. He turned and looked right at me. He was pissed. Instinctively I said, “How you doing?” Well, Mr. Myers lost it. He went on a complete tirade, yelling at us about how we broke the law and how we were trespassing and how he could call the cops, have our asses thrown in jail or shoot us and bury us in the woods.
And no one would ever find us.
He demanded to know how we got in. We swore we came through an opening off of the kitchen that someone else had made. He already knew that, of course, because he saw our footprints in the snow.
Dumbasses.
We quickly figured out that this caretaker-groundskeeper-psycho already sealed up the way we came in. Shit, shit, shit. In between threats of taking our cameras and throwing our asses in jail, we tried to engage him by asking him questions about the hotel. We were truly interested and hoped we could win him over so he wouldn't kill us. As he checked windows to make sure they were secure, I removed the memory card from my camera and put it in my front pocket. That motherfucker wasn't getting my pictures.
We continued to ask him questions as he wandered around the first floor. He fumed about all of the people he has caught vandalizing, stealing and of course, wackos like us taking pictures. Clearly, he was hoping when he caught us that we would be spray painting or destroying the place, so he could “toss our asses out the window.”
He was nuts, and the only exit was still boarded up. We had been following Charles Manson around for 2 hours now. In an angry voice, he said that we were wasting his time – time that he should have spent working. Mr. Bipolar was confusing us again. We apologized profusely and assumed he was going to just kick us out.
One of the creepiest things he said was that sometimes he comes into the hotel and just sits in a chair and waits — waits for trespassers to arrive ... or come out of hiding."Kids ain't got no fuckin' patience. They'll hide for a little while, but they always come out eventually.”
Creepy Ass Mo Fo.
He continued to lecture us, and we followed him like scared puppies back into the kitchen where he tried to call his boss on his flip phone. My iPhone was so cold that it wouldn't work. It displayed a thermometer icon and said, "Please try again later."
LATER?
I'll be dead, later.
He tried calling again and eventually got his boss’s voicemail and with his back to us, he yelled into the phone. He said that he had found two “critters” exploring the hotel and wanted to know “what to do with them.” After he hung up, he said it would be up to the old man to decide our fate. Since he called him “the old man” I asked if they were related. He said, “no, I just call the cocksucker that." He had a way with words. He went on to tell us about how much the old man farts and burps and never leaves his fucking house, while he, on the other hand, was in the hotel choking and breathing in mold and asbestos. He told us a heartwarming story about when he locked his boss in the bathroom and blew a fart in his "fucking face." He was totally trashing this guy and it was impossible not to laugh. He enjoyed having an audience, too. He was funny and we were laughing at all the right moments. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.
As we wandered back to the lobby, Shawn asked him what year the hotel closed. He started shuffling through papers and receipts that were scattered around. He pointed to one that was dated 2004. A few minutes later he grabbed a hotel brochure and put it down on the front desk. “There! There’s a souvenir for ya!”, he said, as if he had been searching for hours.
How nice.
And aha! He wasn’t going to kill us, after all. I mean, he was offering us a souvenir. We're all friends now!
Suddenly it was like at the end of The Wizard Of Oz when you realized the mean old wizard is just — a man. His entire demeanor changed. The evil drained right out of him and he said, “Well, I might as well give you a tour of the place.”
Whaaa, whaaaaaa, whaaaaaat?
That’s when Shawn offered him a hug.
Grumpy's reaction was priceless: a "touch-me-and-you're-a-dead-motherfucker" kind of look.
Suddenly, it was like waiting for Disney World to open and we were the first two kids in line. I put the memory card back into my camera (for the third time) and we followed Norman Bates up the stairs to the second floor of the hotel.
We hit every room, every bathroom, every closet, every inch of that amazing hotel. That poor, historic building was totally trashed, but it was still full of furniture and even some belongings. There were beds, nightstands, TVs, phones, shower curtains, blankets, sheets, pillows, you name it.
Some rooms looked horrendous and others looked as if someone had just been sleeping in them. Some closets had clothes hanging in them. The wallpaper and carpeting in each room was outrageous and very dated. Even though the place closed in 2004, the décor was still totally 70’s.
Marcia Brady would have loved it.
"Look in every toilet and you’ll see that someone has taken a shit!” He was right. And maybe that's why he decided to piss out the fucking window.
True story. Crazy people don’t have to explain anything.
While Shawn and I went from room to room, taking pictures – Freddy Krueger gave us the director’s commentary.
It was 3PM now.
He called his boss again and this time he got through: “I had ‘em boxed in ... I had ‘em scared and I fucking boarded up the God damn way they got in. Then I came in the back door and I fucking boarded that door up so they couldn’t get away. You know me … I lock ‘em in so I God damn got ‘em … I left the gun in the fucking truck though … “
The more he talked, the louder he got: “I found two fuckers in here and I had to shoot ‘em and they ran. I got fucking blood all over the God damn place. I gotta do something to get the fucking blood out of here. And I need to find a fucking spot to bury them. Gonna drag ‘em up there to that pit up on top the hill!”
Wait a minute! Was this his routine? Is this what he does every time he catches someone —he scares the living shit out of them and then offers them a tour? Can it be?? Then again, maybe there was no boss and he was just pretending to be on the phone with someone. If that was the case — then we were fucked.
He hung up with his boss who said he was on his way. We had no idea if it was true. We continued exploring the rest of the hotel. The top floor was tiny with merely two bedrooms and access to the elevator shaft. From the back room and the highest part of the hotel Hannibal Lecter started yelling out the window. Turns out his boss was real and he was now outside. Our fearless leader screamed and yelled at him while he tossed lamps - and anything else he could grab - out the window. We were on the 5th floor.
He was in rare form:“I’m up on top of the world mother fucker! I still got my boys here. I won’t let ‘em leave. Deciding whether I should shoot them or not.” There he goes again. He was a regular drama queen, without the wig and lipstick.
After yelling about farting and what he had for breakfast, he went on to say, “I forgot to buy you that damn butt plug I saw on-fucking-line. I was gonna buy you that for Christmas. Super size one too. Jam that thing right up your fucking ass. Had a strap on it. Strap it right around the fucking front of you. Make sure it didn’t blow out. Hey you fucking limp dicked bitch. NO, I HAVEN'T BEEN FUCKING DRINKING YET, I'M GONNA DRINK WHEN I GET HOME! My ears are getting cold while you sit in your warm truck … fucker!”
Out. Of. Control.
Hilarious.
The best part? I was videotaping. The look on Shawn's face was priceless. It was a range of emotions from amusement and excitement to terror and just plain old "what the fuck?”
So, the "boss" was real, but he never came in the building. It was pretty clear that we were not in trouble ... at all. How did we manage that? As the three of us headed downstairs, Captain Cuckoo gathered up various things that he had set aside to take with him.
Hmmm. He worries about kids stealing, eh?
By this time, we were practically family, so I asked, "how about a tour of the basement?" That’s where we headed next. We were warned to be careful as the floor was sinking in various spots.
The basement was made up of several sections, all very dark and some were pitch black. There was the spa, the hair salon, the boiler room, the laundry room and access to underneath the ballroom. Yep, we followed him there too. He showed us every pipe, gadget, fixture and tub. There was a huge piece of debris blocking the hair salon, so he picked it up and moved it out of the way so we could take some good pictures. Thanks, Bigfoot!
After the basement tour, it was time to go back upstairs. It was now 4:45PM. It was getting dark outside and getting even darker inside the hotel. My iPhone was working again. Yay! It was 9° in the Hotel Adler. We were shivering as Jack Nicholson made his way back into the kitchen. We followed, both of us wondering why we weren't leaving yet. He didn't seem to want this day to end. He had made some friends. In the kitchen he found a large contraption he said was a dough maker – used to make dinner rolls. It was pretty impressive and he really seemed to know his shit. Then again, what do we know about making bread? After doing some research, it turns out he was right.
There was a funny moment when Shawn shined his flashlight on a pitcher in the kitchen sink. He yelled, “looks like someone took a piss here!” Sam Kinison yelled, “They probably fucking did!” Meanwhile, I was the one who had taken a piss! When those two were on the other side of the kitchen I relieved myself in a beer pitcher. I certainly wasn't going to ask for permission to whip it out and take a leak. I've seen Deliverance.
We made our way back behind the dining room and then across the lobby and into what used to be the hotel synagogue, where our exit door was sealed tight. It was sooooo dark in there now. Wow. What an experience we were having, and it was almost over. It was like the end of the Poseidon Adventure when they were cutting through the hole in the bottom of the ship.
We were almost free.
I didn't want it to end.
Using that cordless screwdriver again, Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor removed the wood that was across the door and out we stepped. The sun was quickly going down. He put the items that he was taking into his truck which was already full of junk. He suddenly yelled, "I'm a packer —but I'm not a fudge packer!"
Classy guy.
He sealed up the door to the hotel as we stood behind him and watched. We weren’t quite sure how to say goodbye to someone who had held us hostage and threatened to kill us, and then took us on a 6-hour tour and made us laugh our asses off.
Plus, that motherfucker wouldn't stop talking! Any thoughts of inviting him with us to dinner quickly disappeared. We had definitely had enough of him and needed to get the hell out of Dodge.
As he shook Shawn's hand, he introduced himself as Mark. Shawn introduced himself as Bill. I introduced myself as Jim. Inside I was laughing hysterically since Shawn and I had been calling each other by our real names all day.
Guess we're all nuts.
We both thanked "Mark" for showing us around such an amazing place. I think he realized how much we appreciated the experience and knew we would never forget it. In return he thanked us and said that he really isn’t around people much and is in fact, kind of lonely. It was very touching and sad. Spending the day with us was clearly the highlight of his week, if not year. It’s definitely an experience that Shawn and I will never forget, as well.
I just hope we don't find out that our new BFF actually died 10 years ago … or never existed.
WARNING: PLEASE NOTE THAT TRESPASSING IS ILLEGAL AND I DO NOT RECOMMEND IT. THOSE WHO DISREGARD THIS ADVICE RUN THE RISK OF BEING ARRESTED AND CHARGED. THIS BLOG IS ONLY ONE PERSONS EXPERIENCE. YOURS MAY BE DIFFERENT.
