The Abandoned Lake Clifton High School

As I've gotten older abandoned buildings have kind of went on the back burner of things I've readily been able to do in my free time. This, partially do to the increasing lack of abandoned locations. It takes a lot for a place to bring back the same feeling I got when I was 16 going into abandoned malls. Baltimore seems to be the exception every single time. Lake Clifton was one of my favorite explores to date, and one that I wish hadn't fleeted my radar for the past 4 or so years its been vacant.

Lake Clifton was built over a filled in lake and opened in Fall of 1971.Lake Clifton was touted as the most modern school in the nation, featuring several expensive art installments, a one of a kind sculpture centerpiece, 2 gyms, and a pool, it faced issues dealing with drugs, segregation, fighting, and gun violence from the beginning despite its modern amenities. In the 1980's the building would be merged with Eastern High School and have its name changed to reflect the merge. It was still the largest school on the east coast of the United States with its whopping 1 billion dollar construction cost. Eastern High would be downsized in the early 2000's with an ACE Technical School taking over a portion of the building as well as an elementary school and a separate high school. The building was left vacated and abandoned in 2015 in a city wide effort by Baltimore to cut costs.

I found the school through my friends,Parker and Trevor. I knew the building was massive but could not have been prepared for just how large of a school this really was. Upon first arriving we very quickly found not one, but rather 7 propped open doors and windows around the bottom floor of the building. A fire had recently occurred near the main office and burned a large middle section of the building, even causing a partial collapse of beams and the concrete floor above. Despite this, the power was still on even in burned sections. Almost everything had been left in the building and after about 6 hours inside we still had to plan a trip back because we hadn't seen everything. We easily got lost several times, namely in the basement as its winding corridors seemed to go on forever and all looked alike, even featuring a bomb shelter much like another Baltimore school I explored.

We have been back to this building around 4 times now and each time seem to discover new things, with the last time wielding an entire 4 story wing of the building we had never seen. By day the parking lots were used for driver training and by night it was borderline dangerous to stick around. By 10PM there was a hoard of copper thieves ripping live wiring out of panel boxes and a slew of homeless people barricading themselves in top floor classrooms that still had working AC and heat, one storage closet even being used as a child's bedroom with a bed and book shelves stacked with toys and books as well as a science lab being used as a functioning kitchen. Just when you thought you had reached the end of a hallway it would reveal a staircase or another hallway. It was like a huge abandoned playground for us.