Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (early July 2000): While visiting New York in July (a very hot and stupid thing to do), Liz and I desperately wanted to find the stairwell under the Waldorf-Astoria hotel that's rumoured to lead seven or eight stories down to abandoned train tunnels. Though we think we found the door we wanted, it was locked and we couldn't find another way down. So we went up.

Liz's pictures of the entrance to the staircase to the centre of the
earth and the view from the hotel roof.

       After touring many of the nice convention and meeting rooms near the top of the hotel, we were looking around a storage closet full of carpet and furniture when we noticed a door at the far end of the closet. Climbing over and around all the stuff, we got to the door, and opened it to reveal a very old, very tempting set of stairs heading up. Liz whipped out her camera as we scurried up into a series of ancient mechanical rooms on different levels, in which we found tiny doors leading out to various rooftops. We never managed to find the way to the uppermost rooftop, but we did get some spectacular views of the city.

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