hey everybody Adam Savage here in my cave
it's day 147 of the locked I don't know how many times how many days we've been
locked down but Adam Savage here in my cave with a show-and-tell based on some
questions that you guys have been asking on social media specifically someone
reached out and said I'm noticing in the background there are all sorts of
interesting signs around and they were particularly curious about this one that
says dressing or undressing prohibited and it's actually a cool story behind it
so I figured I'd tell you but I'm also going to give some broader context to
this to try and um really honestly broader context is just to make myself
seem more important because I want to go back to MIT in the 50s and the origin of
the word hacking if you haven't researched it is actually a pretty cool
history because hacking as originally meant was about exploring things that
might not be amenable to you exploring them but leaving no trace that you had
done that and that started really the whole idea of urban exploration as a
hobby started at MIT in the mid century and it's now a big thing people go and
investigate sewers and there was a famous like movie theater in the
catacombs of Paris that you know no one still knows who set it up etc this
advice to say it's a long way of saying that urban exploring is really more like
a codified name for a hobby that every teenager indulges in at some point and I
was no exception so I grew up in Tarrytown New York about 25 miles north
of New York City Tarrytown is where the Tappan Zee Bridge
crosses from Westchester County to Rockland County and it's an amazing
little town as it encompasses a lot of wild land protected wildlife sanctuary I
believe from the Rockefellers it's right on the Hudson River and I also grew up
in a town with a GM plant right at the edge of a part called Kingsland Point
Park and Kingsland Point Park was the the location of the lighthouse actually
it's the same lighthouse that I broke my neck jumping off of but that's a totally
different story I tinglin Point Park was a recreational
park you could go there and have picnics is beautiful beautiful location and they
also had a bathhouse not a bathhouse but like a place where people could go take
showers after swimming and there was boat club and you could rent boats this
is all back in the day all of it was mothballed long before I was a kid but
as I grew up this this pool house bath house showers at Kingsland Point Park
was always shut down and sometime around the age of 16 I found my first lock pick
actually I found the blade of a street sweeper brush which are made of steel
and using it I fashioned my first lockpick later on when I later on when I
discovered the Internet and the very first thing I ever downloaded from the
internet and I think 1993 was the MIT guide to lock picking and it codified
that the blade of a street sweeper brush is in fact a fantastic lockpick and I I
filed a lockpick and I rudimental II taught myself how to pit pick up like a
five tumbler lock and then I started looking around for locks to pick where I
had lots of time because it took me like half an hour to 40 minutes to actually
get a you know do it and the these these shower rooms this this this boathouse at
Kingsland Point Park was perfect because that was often empty this building was I
don't think it was fenced off but I certainly would have that block of time
40 minutes to try and pick this lock of to the building without someone
happening across me and so I did that and I was able to open the front door of
that bath house and wander through and just sort of see all the abandoned stuff
I was really really psyched about it and then I came across this sign which I
find hilarious this side speaks deeply to my sense of humor because it
describes a state between two poles that doesn't seem to be possible wait if I
can't dress and I can't undress what can I do am I breaking the
rules just being a person there so I carefully removed the sign from the wall
and took it home and it has been part of every space that I have lived in since
the mid 80s I had this in my dorm room at college I had it in my first
apartment all the apartments I had in New York here in San Francisco it has
followed me around so I'm glad you noticed it because I'm quite fond of it
as you could imagine I've had it now for thirty thirty-five plus years and like I
said it makes me smile every time I look at it thank you guys for asking these
wonderful questions I will keep on doing show and tell us from here in the cave
stay safe and I will see you next time