Tower Heist! Answers on the Roof of an Abandoned Building in Dongzhimen

“Don’t wear any loose clothes, with straps or anything like that. You have to watch your head.”

Okay.

“Don’t drink before we do this.”

Okay ...

“Bring a flashlight.”

K. Flashlight.

“I’ve got a first aid kit, but you should bring toilet paper.”

Okay. Toilet paper.

“And I shouldn’t have to tell you ... but you should wear black.”

***

Dongzhimen is a central part of the city. It’s one of a million central parts of Beijing, right, but it’s one of the main ones. I think. Dongzhimen – there are giant highways filled with cars, shining shopping centers on top of even better shopping centers, cops parked on the street, overpasses, underpasses, everyone walking to and from the places they need to be. People taking the subway. People looking for a taxi. People giving up on getting a taxi. It’s Dongzhimen. It’s dedicated. It’s transit. It’s a hub.

There’s a mall in Dongzhimen that’s pretty weird. It’s in the middle of this huge inhale and exhale of all these people, but it’s empty. GUOSON MALL. Empty-ish. 

On the front it says “HI I’M GUOSAN MALL I’LL SEE YOU SOON.” Or something.

Which is ... kinda a really great thing to say to people. 

It’s a bus depot. It’s where busses park. Or it’s a KFC. Or it’s where you can buy a dusty bag of Lay's chips. Or a dusty green tea. It’s this big building right at one of only two stations that take you to the airport. It’s between Sanlitun and Beixinqiao. Seems like it has massive property value but no one is doing anything. There’s so many people, right? It’s dusty. Looks like someone’s messing up.

So, to that thinking, I hired a guy on the internet and we broke into it to see what’s there. 

So, that’s what this article is going to be about from here on out. Breaking and entering. When it comes down to it: b and e. It’s an article about trespass and dumbness, exhilaration, stepping on nails, exploration, Dongzhimen, and the human condition. 

My key thinking is this: You see this damn GUOSON MALL building every day, don’t you want to see what’s inside?

I’LL SEE YOU SOON.

This is what I’m talking about. 

I’m a professional journalist writing for a professional periodical, the Beijinger, so I did my due research. I googled this Guoson Mall to see the situation. I googled it.

***

“Beijing certainly has no shortage of ghostly malls and office buildings, but the absence of life in the Guoson Center right next to the bustling Dongzhimen subway station has always been puzzling.

Turns out a property developer, the Guangyao Dongfang Group, has been looking into acquiring the building and turning it into something its big siblings could be proud of. But wait – seems like no one can decide who currently has the rights to the whopping 600,000 square-meter mall ..."

- the Beijinger, 2013

***

But for real, how does buying a building even work? I have no idea. I have a savings account, which I’ve had since I was 13. It has 347 bucks in it. How do people buy buildings? How do people buy entire buildings and then just not finish them? Is that like “supply” and “demand”? Is that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”? 

Is that like Adam Smith’s “invisible handjob"? 

Zing. Enough. So there is a tower next to Guosan Mall. It’s called Guosan Towers. That’s what me and my expert friend broke into. It’s this. It’s Guoson “I'LL SEE YOU SOON” in the clouds. It’s the overseer. 

It’s 34 floors straight-up stairs, with two deep elevator pits running down the middle that go from the top, all the way down. Bottomless pits, no second chances. It’s dangerous and unsafe as f*ck. It’s gutted. It’s abandoned. It’s like someone’s letting the earth reclaim it.

Someone lost it in a poker game when everyone else was playing Tetris.

It’s 34 stories, a straight climb, to oblivion. It’s concrete. It’s unloved.

It’s abandoned like the Crash Test Dummies CDs I got for Christmas when I was 13. 

It’s abandoned like the Tae Kwan Doe uniform my parents bought me when I was 9. 

It’s abandoned like all our damn hopes and dreams, my friends!

It’s 34 floors of running up, killer concrete. 

This article’s about, if nothing else, getting Beijing dirt under our privileged nails. Let’s go. 

****

Here we go, it’s going to be fast because we’re running from 80-year-old bao'ans who couldn’t care less.

We jump a corrugated fence around back by stepping on rusted pipes. I’ve already ripped my thumb open and hurt my balls. At this point, we have to be quiet and not turn our flashlights on because people can see them in the dark.

My man says, we can’t speak until we make it to the seventh floor. Fumbling up uneven concrete stairs. Running my hand on walls to try to find balance, and bringing back fistfuls of dust. Gobi desert, maybe. Thinking I could have just stayed in watching a Sherlock DVD and just made this up.

F*cking winded on the first seven damn floors. There are 34 more. Get out my camera, thinking of my man Steven Schwankert and the Beijinger and THE SCOOP.

Just trying to take pictures of anything that looks like the downfall of civilization. Anything that can be construed as a weak metaphor for my laziness. Praying to Jesus no one busts me on it. I’m trying to pass with a C+ at this point. No one reads the f*cking comments on the Beijinger.

Layout is like a standard office building. It’s such a classic office building. Like if you just unwrapped it from a box. Great potential. I can see where due diligence and pipes were supposed to go. Feeling like I would have been honored to have my businesses go out of business here.

Anyone here ever play Goldeneye for N64? Anyone here play it 17 years later in real life, plus 50 pounds?

Floor after floor. It’s like Donkey Kong plus heartburn plus I just want to call my parents to apologize. For everything. Looking to the bright side of things. If I die in an cave-in, I won’t have to split a cab. There’s grandeur and beauty and transgression happening – another positive.

We shake and hold our breath up this rusted staircase on to the rooftop – the 98th million-th floor. The roof is completely open, and wide, and derelict to the Beijing sky. Plants are growing back through shattered glass. Shattered concrete blocks, and wide open stretches of crumbling window ledges into the city view below. Can’t lean too hard on the rail, ‘cause we could fall over.

Dudes, you’re my friends, I wouldn’t lie to you, there were stars out. There were stars in the Beijing sky. Kinda stars. Like three. It was good.

When you take a chance, and are willing to stand in three feet of tetanus, and break a few minor (major) trespassing ordinances, Beijing is a pretty emotional thing. Weak ending, I know. Hopefully, the pictures turned out okay.

****

I got turned on to the life of misdemeanors by burbex.org. A website dedicated to reclaiming urban spaces at night for 10 minutes at a time, exercising, figuring out where you are in the world several stories above it, and f*cking foolishness. If you ever need anyone to help you climb a fence, go that way. Big hearts and spray paint.

Photos: Morgan Short