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Our first stop the day I took these pictures was a lonely building in East St. Louis. My friends Chris, Mandy, and I set out early afternoon with our intended target in mind. We arrived, parked, and headed toward the recently unboarded building. I noticed a couple of guys sitting in a car outside the building and thought it would be best to walk around rather than enter, but we went inside anyway. This of course invited questions that were yelled from the car. The two guys wanted to know what we were doing, why we were doing it, and most importantly, if we wanted to "party." We laughed it off, answered vaguely, and headed inside the building.
The building was beautiful and full of all the things one would expect from a building of its kind. We wandered around upstairs, made our way to the basement, and took a different route back to the second floor. Upon reaching the second floor, I noticed something was off. There were mountains of food wrappers and soda bottles lying around this room we hadn't been through before. It was clear someone was squatting in the building. We treaded cautiously, careful to avoid the sporadic mounds of human feces on the ground. Chris wandered into another room and ran right into a man hiding behind the piano I was standing directly behind. They exchanged words, and we left.
Standing outside, Chris assured Mandy and I there was nothing to worry about, and we all headed back inside to explore the third floor we had yet to see. Back inside and opposite the wall the man had been hiding behind, we heard a very loud and very distinct "FUCK YOU" come from the other side. OK, well I don't have to be told twice. Mandy and I high-tailed it out of there without looking back. But Chris had something else in mind. He questioned the obscenity and asked the man if he was all right... to which he received the warm reply, "I ain't your kid." I suppose the man doesn't appreciate caring gestures. Maybe he felt threatened. Whatever it was, he certainly wasn't friendly this day.
After leaving the building, we decided to head over to Hunter Meat Packing Plant, but stopped at a couple of churches along the way. We didn't spend long at either church, and when we left the second one, we ran into another friendly face. As we were about to walk out of the church, a young man stepped in the doorway, blocking our exit. I noticed he was the same man I had waved to earlier when we were heading to the church. He wanted to know what we were doing at an abandoned church. "Exploring", "walking around", and "checking it out" never seem to make sense to people. He was sure we were there to do drugs. He asked if we needed any drugs. Assuring him this wasn't the case, we were able to get outside and head on our way. As we were walking back to the car, a man randomly yelled out to us, "Cheez Snaps is good." Well, indeed they are sir. It was time to end this fiasco in East St. Louis and make our way to Hunter.
Hunter Meat Packing Company closed its doors in the 1960's. It fell victim to many of the same ills that plagued its neighbor Armour Meat Packing Plant. The building, or rather complex, is massive in size and shows signs of recent demolition activity. My friend Michael and I discovered Hunter several months ago, but were hesitant to go inside. The neighborhood Hunter is located in has an unsettling feel to it that has always rubbed me the wrong way. But I was willing to put my hesitations aside when we saw signs that Hunter was going to be torn down. Not wanting to miss out on seeing the inside the plant, we made plans to explore the complex soon. A week or two later, Michael and I were hanging out with our friend Chris and were headed to Armour Meat Packing Plant. We decided to detour and visit Hunter first.
On my first visit, I found Hunter to be a rather boring building that was monotonous and too skeletal. Many of the floors were the same, and it seemed the only things left behind were mountains of rubble and debris. It was eerie to be inside an abandoned slaughterhouse. Signs of the building's inhumanity could be found littered throughout the complex. Ceilings with metal bars hanging from them, large, industrial fans rusted almost beyond recognition, deteriorated pulleys and chains...
I wasn't too excited to return to Hunter with Mandy and Chris a week later, but I knew I hadn't seen all that Hunter had to offer. We arrived late in the afternoon and snaked our way through the building by following vaguely familiar paths. We visited old areas of interest including the roof and a medium-sized room stuffed full of Hunter propaganda. We made our way to new areas I hadn't seen on my prior visit, including rooms full of gas masks and computer screens. During my second visit to Hunter, the building opened itself up and invited us to more intriguing wings and rooms. It was definitely worth a second look.
Each time I visited the complex, there was a car parked on the grounds. And each time, it appeared as though the people who owned the car were there to pilfer and steal materials. During the second visit, the car owners set up barrels in which they burned various items from the factory. We never ran into the people, and I have no idea if they were legitimate or not. It doesn't seem to matter though. It's apparent that Hunter won't be around for much longer. The building is in a state of demolition, and it's only a matter of time before the entire complex is razed.
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