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In 1995 the Black Mold Wellness Center board of
directors were facing a dire situation. Membership and
participation rates were falling dramatically, nearly half a
million dollars was needed to bring the facility to standard and
worst of all, a long term subsidy was required to fund day to
day activities. But the money never came and on October 31,
1995, the last day care left the wellness center and effectively
left the building vacant.
The building continued to sit vacant and forgotten until the
election of 2004. With the Liberals facing a united Conservative
front and a possible election defeat the party went on a
promising spree. One of these promises came in the form of a $3
million subsidy to re-establish a wellness facility on the site
of the vacant facility. While I was not able to enter the
building in 2004 I was sceptical that anything would actually
happen with the facility.
Fast forward to a mild
Friday afternoon in October 2006. While examining my list of “To
do’s” there was one building in particular that intrigued me,
the Broken Promise Wellness Center. A quick drive by indicated
that my scepticism in 2004 was valid, the wellness center was
still boarded up and still decaying even further. Under the
moonlight of a full prairie moon I made my way into the fully
lit wellness center undetected. The only problem was that I left
my tri-pod at home and reluctantly went back to retrieve it.
With tripod in hand I
once again entered into the wellness center. I began in the
basement and immediately noticed the familiar pungent smell of
mold. Though I was expecting a large amount of toxic substance I
could never have guessed the sheer amount of it. Covering almost
all of the walls and ceilings in many portions the basement
resembled the canvas of some abstract artist rather than a sheet
rocked wall.
After taking some
pictures of the bathroom I headed up to the first floor. On the
south end of the building I came upon a number of rooms that
were used for day care. There wasn’t much left over save for the
childish murals on the walls so any further description would be
pointless and boring. Beside the daycare rooms lay a large gym
with a heaving wooden floor. There were many remnants left over
including a jungle gym set attached to the wall and numerous
pieces of gymnastics equipment. Using all of these various
pieces was fun for a while but when boredom kicked in I decided
to venture further into the facility.
The main entrance and lobby area is a spacious but ugly two
story mess of 80’s architecture. Aside from a banner hanging
from the ceiling calling for 1994’s volunteers to return there
was nothing of particular interest here and so I headed down to
the pool.
There were three ways of getting to
the pool; one was through the exercise room, and the other two
through either the men’s or women’s locker room. Being the
humble gentleman that I am I opted to travel through the
exercise room. Surprisingly there were a number of machines left
in place and as I tried to use them the general effects of
weathering made their presence known. Rust had collected heavily
on each pulley making it a strain even to get the weights in the
air. Additionally, the weight load of the cables had diminished
rapidly and snapped under the strain of the my pulling.
As I left the workout room I
decided to head to the pool as the lights were still on (that
and I have an incurable attraction to pools). With the smell of
chlorine still strong I the pool room and possibly onto one of
the most disgusting pools of water I have ever seen. In the deep
end of the pool water had collected to a depth of four feet and
had a thick film of brown sludge covering its surface. From the
large amount of fallen brown cork surrounding the pool I
determined that the brown sludge on the water was created by the
same process, only this time it had fallen into a pool of water.
With jumping into the water out of
the question I headed back down the hall and into the women’s
change rooms. Like many typical pools this change room had a set
of tiled showers before entering into the hallway to the pool.
Along with these showers was a steam room with a sign alerting
patrons not to shave in the room. While I knew that these rooms
were a place of relaxation I could not help but shake the
feeling that these rooms were used for something more sinister.
With its tiled ceiling and walls along with a rubber hose
running out of the wall the room resembled something out of a
death camp.
After exploring the rest of women’s
locker room I traveled to the men’s locker room across the
hallway. The men’s locker room is almost identical to the
women’s except that its layout is a mirrored image of the
women’s. Just outside of the men’s room is the mech. room but
aside from the working fire alarm there was not really anything
worth describing. With the clock reaching 2:00 AM I decided to
call it a night and dive into my mold free bed.
Later that weekend the boys of MUSE and I entered the confines
of the building and effectively "whored" the building up.
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