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COPYRIGHT 2004 Smithsonian Institution
Call me a masochist, but I've come to cherish my outings with Julia Solis, a flame-haired original who lives in a rough part of Brooklyn, New York, near the fetid Gowanus Canal. She's smart, amazingly curious and absolutely fearless. These qualities come in handy during her frequent explorations of urban ruins--abandoned aqueducts, tunnels and factories--where light is scarce and mold and spores express their colonial tendencies unchecked. She finds beauty in industrial decay, architectural excesses, cabinets full of old medical equipment, and the steel beams that drip rust into decrepit tunnels.
"These places contain the residue of the many souls that have passed through over the years," she says. "The less a place has been explored, the better, because the air hasn't been diluted and the soul marks are fresh."
On the side, Solis tracks building implosions across the country. The structures to be destroyed are almost always places she would love to explore, and she hates to see them disappear. But she loves to witness their final moments. The only time I've ever seen her angry was when my poor navigational skills caused us to nearly miss an important Philadelphia implosion. We got there just in time, and Solis' face went slack and her eyes got soft as she watched the building drop and the dust cloud rise. Then she scurried off to meet with the explosives teams, seeking information...
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