The Lehigh Bank Building

This is what it's all about... Roof Access!

This site was found by J, and from his description of the exterior, I was excited to get a look at the inside. There are actually two seperate buildings here, connected by a common fire escape. The larger structure was at one point a good size Corestates Bank office, while the smaller was probably just office space.

From the street these buildings look pretty well sealed up, but J discovered that construction crews working on the back face of the smaller building created a nice opening for us.

We arrived around 1:00am or so and immediately walked around back and over some huge piles of demolition rubble and debris. Once inside we worked our way up the smaller building until about the fourth floor... that's when we discovered that a worker left one of the fire escape doors to the bank building propped open slightly.

It seems as though the bank building had been converted to generic office space after Corestates left, and the main lobby was turned into a deli. In the basement we found two bank vaults hidden behind a wall. From the looks of it they had beed covered over a few years ago, probably when Corestates left. Perhaps the new owners didn't want to worry about the liability issues of somebody getting trapped inside so they gave up the extra floor space.

We made our way up each of the floors in the bank building via the central staircase to the roof. Excellent view from up there and a good time to take a break and enjoy the scenery. Lacking a tripod, I couldn't take any long exposure pictures that would have been necessary to capture the sleeping city, but by wedging my camera against one of the castellations along the roofline I got a decent shot of the empty streets below us.

Many thanks to J for finding this location, and for inviting me along for the first infiltration of it.

The view when you first get over the pile of rubble and into the smaller building

The view when you first get over the pile of rubble and into the smaller building

Each floor of the smaller building had exactly one washroom like this, usually situated off a large office room

The elevator in the smaller building was beginning to show its age. No buttons to select which floor you want, just a big handle to select up or down... But the iron work makes it worth the inconvenience.

The stair well in the bank building went from the second floor to the tenth. Watch out for blood thirsty pidgeons when you get higher up.

An ofice door on the fourth floor. The center set starburst handle in the door adds a touch of, ahh, well, something.

The lobby of the bank building. Some sort of deli took over this area when the bank moved out

There are two open vaults in the basement. Both were covered over with drywall and left.

BACK