Medical Arts Building II- Hot Springs

Last weekend, me and a friend met up with jakethesartech2 and headed back down to the Medical Arts buidling in downtown Hot Springs. After gaining entrance to the building, we were amazed to see how much suff was still left inside.
We explored several of the offices and other rooms on the entrance floor, which we found out to be the fourth. At one point, part of this building had been a radio station and we were able to find a cabinet for equipment that still have the "on-air" light switch on it.


After this, we started up the stairs to other parts of the building. On the landing above us, we found an old crate containing old coke and 7-up bottles and a suspiciously new looking BAWLS bottle. As we continued up the stairs, we stopped on several different floors. One of these floors had a complete office still set up, but you could tell it had been out of use. There were also several ESPN banners lying around the building. Another part of the building had been a TV station and there were archives filled with the shows they used to play. One of the neatest finds was a room completely filled with stuff. There were two or there chandlers in boxes and several stacks of old maps. There were also Ozark souvenir toothpicks dating from 1985.










Finally, after 12 stories, we reached the top most level. We entered into a room that held the machine that worked the elevator, a work bench, and what I believe was a fuse box. From this point, we were able to climb from the ladder out onto the roof. This was easier said then done though. The ladder didn't have a solid floor underneath it; there was a drop of two or three stories before something would stop your fall.

Everyone was able to make it onto the roof safely. The view from the roof is great and you can see the whole of downtown. The two pictures I took on the roof were mostly meant to show height. The first is a shot of the towers on the Arlington and the scenic tower that overlooks downtown. The second shows a view heading downtown towards the convention center and old army and naval hospital.
The journey back down was mostly uneventful. We stopped on serval of the floors that we missed and several of the pictures from earlier were actually from the way back down. However, when we returned to the entrance floor, we decided we wanted to do more extensive exploring than we had done the first time. We were all looking at this old office when all of a sudden jakethesartech2 stopped and turned suddenly. He asked us if we had heard anything. We listened and we heard this "Screech, Screech" noise. We thought we were in big trouble and that the store owners below had called the cops. However, it turned out it was just some other UE's, the ones who had originally shown me the building. They had decdied it would be it would a good idea to roll around in the old metal wheelchair. After talking to them for a few minutes, we decided to call it a day and headed out. I'm surprised they didn't get the cops called on them as much noise as they were making.

-Fonzi