There are live third rails and trains moving around and we don't want any fatalities. In February, during her first exploration of an abandoned 876-acre mental hospital complex on the North Shore of Long Island, Ms. Solis was careful not to be seen, and seemed unperturbed by risks. He dropped down a ladder and lighted an old-fashioned miner's lamp attached to his hard hat. The three-inch open flame illuminated Ms. Solis as she followed gracefully in black boots, a Prada skirt and a short shearling coat. Asbestos insulation crumbled in the moist, still air.
Raccoon prints the size of human hands marked the steam pipes.
Judging from an aerial photograph of the hospital campus, which she found on the Internet, Ms. Solis said she believed they were headed toward an old boarded-up Georgian style building she had seen near the tunnel entrance. Ms. Solis is drawn to the mix of the grand and the utilitarian found in hospitals, and she often spends entire nights going from room to room by flashlight, occasionally terrorized by her own imagination. After an hour in the dark, she led the way through a narrow brick passageway supported by steel beams dripping rusty stalactites. Several hundred yards later they climbed through a manhole into a 1960's medical building. Layers of colored paint flaked from the walls like confetti.