Hudson's Bay Building

(ancient rooftop mech)
- - - - - - - - - - -
Anymouse and I were walking through Calgary's downtown one day, in the bitter cold. We happened to pass by the venerable Hudson's Bay building, and I couldn't help but stop, in the middle of the sidewalk, and look up at it. Such a beautiful building. And then, it was like some force was calling me to go inside, so Anymouse and I headed in to see what we could find.
First up, we decided to head for the roof, via a convenient elevator. Oddly, there was a tiny spy camera in the elevator, which watched us evilly from the ceiling as we rode up. We got off on the top floor, and I became instantly attracted to an Employees Only corridor off to the side. There were piles and piles of boxes, store decorations, and other random bay junk here, stacked along the hall and in rooms off to the side. I found a back stairwell, which we ventured into, and found we were just one flight away from the roof! Walking right past an inconspicuous motion detector, we went up to the roof door. A sign proclaimed alarms would sound if we ventured through the door, and a security sensor at the top of the frame seemed to back this up.
But I tried the door anyway, which opened quite easily, and we didn't see any flashing lights, nor hear any sirens, so we went onto the roof. Snow-covered, bitterly cold, and in full view of surrounding skyscrapers, the Bay roof was wonderful. There was a massive duct pipe running nearby that had about a hundred pigeons sitting on top of it. We had to take some stairs to cross over the duct, and the flock of birds jumped into the air as we approached; then circled back and landed back in the same spot after we'd gone.
The roof was a fair size, and dotted with little shacks and mech buildings that led back inside; as well as the usual assortment of vents, ducts and air con units. We had a good view of some surrounding buildings, including Banker's Hall and the Calgary Tower. Anymouse shot some excellent photos up here, and I wasted too much film on crappy photos of Banker's Hall.
But the roof was cold, and was interesting mostly for the view, so we went back inside through a door into a penthouse mechanical room. We emerged into a dark little space overlooking a work area. The whole room seemed dirty, and felt really old. I opened a little door at the back which led into a fantastically ancient space, with brick walls and a dirty little window; this was the home of a large fan? of some sort. I crawled down and around to see what was on the other side of the room, getting filthy in the process. Every surface seemed to be covered in a solid layer of dirt. Anymouse followed me, getting equally dirty, only to find that there was nothing interesting on the other side except for more wonderful exposed brick walls. There was no other exit from this side except for a locked roof door, and we had to crawl back the way we'd just come (even dirtier, now!).
We crept through the work area into the mech room proper. This area was small and crammed full of pipes of all sizes and one of the biggest, black metal (boiler?) tanks I have ever seen. The walls were exposed brick in many places, and the ceiling was made of bricks as well. The whole place gave an ancient feel, and I doubt the mech room has ever undergone any serious renovation since its construction.
We took a big wooden ramp at the back of the room into a hallway, which led to another mech room. This one seemed more modern, and was filled with giant machines intended to move, filter, and condition the building's air. There were several giant, silver-walled chambers filled with rushing air, marked according to the floors of the building they served.
Connecting hallways led to more roof doors, and we quickly ventured out into the cold to get more photos before returning inside. I forget where, but we found a messed up area in the back that had storage rooms filled with boxes, an old washroom with a urinal ripped out, and arbitrarily placed walls. One wall was punched through, with bricks showing- another wall seemed to have been built around and over the bannister post of a stairwell.
We checked everywhere, but couldn't find any more doors, so we headed back into the work area where we'd first come in. I took notice of a small ladder we'd passed by several times, and looking up, I could see a black hole in the ceiling. I climbed onto it, and although it appeared fragile and shaky, it was just solid enough to climb on. Climbing up, I had to squeeze around so pipes and handholds, so I wasn't really paying attention to what was above me. Near the top of the ladder, I looked up- then ducked back down with a startled cry of "Holy Shit!".
There was a face looking back down at me from above, and it scared me so much I almost fell off the ladder. I slowly climbed back up, and discovered that someone had put a mask (and beard?) on a small toy sheep, and placed it at the top of the ladder. In the dark, the effect was unexpected and pretty creepy. However, this little guard sheep was no real match for dedicated explorers, and Anymouse soon joined me at the top of the ladder.
All at once, I felt like we'd discovered the oldest and most untouched part of the entire building. The room we'd climbed into had bare brick walls, a floor of wooden boards, and a brick ceiling. There were no lights, and the only illumination came through two dirty windows. Nearly the entire room was filled with a single, massive round metal tank; with a diameter of 3m and about 3m high. Imagine a circle fitted tightly inside a square- that's what this room was like. We were barely able to edge around the sides of the black tank, over and around the wooden beams that were shoring up the walls and metal pipes running near the floor. On one side, there was a dodgy old wooden ladder that leaned up the side of the tank, but I didn't feel like testing its strength. I think this used to be the 'water tower' for the building, back before the city had a water system. The whole space felt ancient and slightly dodgy- though the tank was empty, it was huge, and supported by a network of wooden boards on the floor. It was probably the best find of the day, though.
After we'd descended the ladder back down into the mechroom, we went back out onto the roof. We were about to try to get into another section of the building, but I thought I saw somebody looking at us through a window, so we ran to the other side of the roof and back down the stairs. We left the building (after briefly getting lost in the shopping area in the basement), but I hope to go back someday. I know there's a ton of stuff we didn't get a chance to see.
- - - - - - - - - - -