Palmer House Hilton,
Chicago, Illinois.
When you're at a large, historic hotel what else is there to do but
check out all the off limits areas? It's great at the Palmer House Hilton,
they've apparently never heard of "Keep Out" or "Staff Only" signs, and
you can wander up the stairs, through the mech rooms and out onto the roof
without technically trespassing.
The top two floors are staff areas, filled with laundry services, repair
shops, offices, and breakrooms. I was lucky enough to time my excursions
into these areas when most of the staff was off doing other things, and
on the few times I saw people I was able to avoid them.
The two sub-basements were much the same, there's a main floor (lobby
and desks), a ground floor (shops and conference rooms) a basement (storage
for shops) and a sub-basement (storage and janitorial, formerly a connection
to the freight tunnels somewhere).
The roofs were my main target during my stay, and on the last day I
finally made it to the top floor and found an open door. There were some
fences and gates keeping me out of certain areas (like the penthouse roof
garden) but I had the run of at least half the hotel's rooftop. I did stay
out of certain obviously dangerous areas so I could maintain my cover as
a slightly lost guest.
Some big vent thingys visible outside my room. spRocket from the UER
forums sent me this info about them:
