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| The Samil Citizens' Apartment complex stands with severe fire damage on March 2, 2005. Courtesy of Ron Bandun |
By Ron Bandun
I got my start urban exploring in Korea 15 years ago next week. I'd read up on the dangers and ethics of entering abandoned buildings and consulted experienced explorers active in other countries, but this was not something that was done here. Then Paul, a Korean American punk, showed me Korea had its own abandoned buildings hiding their own secrets.
He regaled me with tales of an abandoned apartment complex along Cheonggye Overpass, at the time being disassembled to reveal Cheonggye Stream underneath.
When we visited on March 2, 2005, he pointed to Lotte Castle, which replaced the Samil Citizens' Apartment complex he had seen there years earlier.
The 24-building complex dates back to 1969, originally intended to rehouse occupants of a nearby shanty town in 1,243 units, as well as block the view from Cheonggye Overpass of more shanty towns. It was a showcase of Korean modernity, but the traffic noises from the overpass must have been loud for the residents. After opening, 22 businessmen were arrested in connection with shoddy construction practices.
Paul showed me around Hwanghak Market, where one could find stores selling power tools and hardware supplies alongside children's toy shops and record stores. This market has been disappearing slowly bit by bit, although parts of it still stand today, including Dol Record, a great vinyl record store dating back to 1975.
We didn't have to look far to find more signs of abandonment and gentrification.
Cheonggye Stream at the time was still underground, with much work being done to prepare it for its return to the surface world.
Across the stream, we saw the remaining Samil apartment buildings. They were long, thin buildings, about seven stories high, in a row along Cheonggye's northern side. And their exteriors were scorched with fire damage. But despite the fire damage higher up, we found the bottom two floors still housed active market businesses.
We scouted the ground floor of one building, checking for dangers and threats, assessing ways in. There were various external staircases, but they were heavily protected by barbwire. So we just entered through one street-level door and walked up the stairs, simple as that. There were no elevators, only stairs.
Once we rose above the market floors, we found the rest of the building an uninhabitable husk. Everything inside was encrusted with black soot. The fire must have been strong. I learned later it came from a series of fires intentionally set in December 2004. Nobody had been caught for it, but it seemed like a good thing for then-Mayor Lee Myung-bak's plan to revitalize (or gentrify) the area through building a huge fountain through it, a plan that didn't work out for this area but helped elect him as president.
Not knowing how serious security would be at a site like this, we spent no more than five minutes inside. On our way down, we passed a sign all in Korean, except for four ominous English letters: CCTV.
Had our intrusion been observed, and might some authority be rushing to apprehend us? We turned into the alley behind the building and made a beeline toward Dongmyo Market, which seemed like the best direction to shake any pursuers.
As we walked, a police car pulled into the alley behind us and headed our way. Paul, dressed in typical punk attire for the day ― a leather jacket and black leather combat boots ― was stressed about the police catching us. But instead we decided to play it cool.
The police car pulled up right behind us and gave us a blast of its siren. We stepped aside cordially for it to pass, and it did. I could see the driver chuckling to himself, which we interpreted as him noting we were foreigners and therefore clueless about entering that building.
After this first adventure, I discovered just how many forgotten spaces like this exist in Korea's urban folds.
I returned in 2008 to check in on the buildings. What I saw gave me quite a surprise.
The bottom two floors of the remaining 12 Samil Citizens' Apartment buildings remained, some with the exact same tenant businesses I'd photographed back in 2005. Only, the buildings had been shortened: the top five residential levels had somehow been removed, leaving the bottom two floors totally intact.
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| The remaining 12 Samil Citizens' Apartment buildings /Courtesy of Ron Bandun |
I had to compare photos from 2005 and 2008 to believe it. I still don't understand how this was done, or why the effort was made, likely at extra expense, to decapitate the top five floors while leaving the two underneath intact.
The buildings remain in this state today alongside Cheonggye Stream; sometimes when I walk by with friends, I point them out and explain I got my start urban exploring there, up on the third to seventh floors of a two-story building.
Ron Bandun is a self-described "anarchaeologist."
