WARNING - no matter what this book says, it is NOT a guidebook. it is a very boring mission book written by some guys that i really feel sorry for (nerdy, misunderstood, few friends - this was gleaned from their own words, not mine). it is a book about their (mis)adventures. or really, their (boring)ventures. it never should have been written. at best, it could have been a blog - that nobody would have read except for their mothers. whoever gave this book 5stars must have written it.

on the plus side - they do give some interesting bits about the history of a few places. this was the ONLY redeeming feature of this book. otherwise, it was a COMPLETE waste of TIME and MONEY. in retrospect, i wish i had read the reviews before buying. if you are considering it, the only saving grace is the little bits of history the history they give. but it is nowhere near enough to redeem the book. its only the badly written stories of a few lonely kids that wanted to make themselves look cool - and terribly failed. i promise you will be disappointed.

Invisible Frontier: Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins, and Rooftops of Hidden New York

this book was a tremendous dissapointment.. it couldnt even hold my attention while i try to skim through it on the john.. lol.. but seriously, its has absolutely no interesting information about the hidden aspects of NYC. it just describes how this "team" walks around breaking into stuff in the city (and lists every individual person involved in each activity at least once a paragraph, so lame) let me give you an example. "johnny b was the first one walking in the pack on the island, then comes randy jo behind wearing all black.. right behind him is betty sue"... AND THIS IS EVERY CHAPTER AND ALMOST EVERY PARAGRAPH..it gives no background infomation on the places the visited, there is no secret information in it, it decribes the george washington bridge, grand central and some other lame sites that anyone who can search google could get 100000x more info then what this book provides. What a great idea for a book but it was so poorly executed that it made me mad enough to log onto amazon just to write a bad review.. dont waste your money

As someone very interested in urban exploration (especially in the subways) I wanted to check this book out upon hearing of it. After reading many of these Amazon reviews though, I opted out of a purchase, and took it out of my Bronx library instead. Thank goodness as I only wasted valuable time, and not any money.

This book is a sham. It is obviously mostly fiction. And it's boring fiction at that. The book is divided into chapters, each chapter a new "adventure."

I read the subway one first, where the "explorers" take the 6 train around the loop at the end of the line, to see the City Hall Station, which opened in 1904 (NYC's first station) and closed in 1948. The station is located on the loop of the 6 train, that makes the southbound trains go back up north after the last stop, Brooklyn Bridge. First of all, anyone can go on this "adventure." Just stay on the train at the last stop, Brooklyn Bridge, and that's it. Despite the author's attempt to make this sound risky, no conductors walk through the train to see if anyone is on (like they really care), just sit down. The author created some "European tourists" that inadvertantly stayed on the 6 after the last stop, and the author even tries to create some mystery by saying "are we on the wrong train?" Well, unless all those huge "6" signs that are lit all over the train are difficult to read, then you probably got on the correct train. The author also fails to mention that the MTA used to give public tours all the time through this station (and others like the 18th street on the 6 and more) but stopped after 9-11. This chapter was a joke. (UPDATE: The MTA now gives tours through the original City Hall station again.)

I started reading the other chapters, and saw they were no better. I then started to breeze through the book. One thing that is very obvious - no photographs of the adventures are in the book at all. This, despite the fact that on page 67 the author states, "Josh takes out his camera and snaps away at every pipe and puddle..." But no photos of their "adventures" are in the book. Why? Because it's fiction.

There are photos of what they are supposed to be exploring, sure, that's easy. There's even one pic of one of these clowns hopping some fence somewhere, ooo. Buit no pics of the actual "adventures." I guess "Josh" lost all those pictures when he went to CVS to have them developed.

The funny thing is, you can save yourself a lot of time by just going online and viewing pictures of these things for yourself. Especially the City Hall station, there are tons of pictures of it available from the people that were in there during the tours.

Just stay away from this sham of a book, it's really a huge waste of time.

As someone very interested in urban exploration (especially in the subways) I wanted to check this book out upon hearing of it. After reading many of these Amazon reviews though, I opted out of a purchase, and took it out of my Bronx library instead. Thank goodness as I only wasted valuable time, and not any money.

This book is a sham. It is obviously mostly fiction. And it's boring fiction at that. The book is divided into chapters, each chapter a new "adventure."

I read the subway one first, where the "explorers" take the 6 train around the loop at the end of the line, to see the City Hall Station, which opened in 1904 (NYC's first station) and closed in 1948. The station is located on the loop of the 6 train, that makes the southbound trains go back up north after the last stop, Brooklyn Bridge. First of all, anyone can go on this "adventure." Just stay on the train at the last stop, Brooklyn Bridge, and that's it. Despite the author's attempt to make this sound risky, no conductors walk through the train to see if anyone is on (like they really care), just sit down. The author created some "European tourists" that inadvertantly stayed on the 6 after the last stop, and the author even tries to create some mystery by saying "are we on the wrong train?" Well, unless all those huge "6" signs that are lit all over the train are difficult to read, then you probably got on the correct train. The author also fails to mention that the MTA used to give public tours all the time through this station (and others like the 18th street on the 6 and more) but stopped after 9-11. This chapter was a joke. (UPDATE: The MTA now gives tours through the original City Hall station again.)

I started reading the other chapters, and saw they were no better. I then started to breeze through the book. One thing that is very obvious - no photographs of the adventures are in the book at all. This, despite the fact that on page 67 the author states, "Josh takes out his camera and snaps away at every pipe and puddle..." But no photos of their "adventures" are in the book. Why? Because it's fiction.

There are photos of what they are supposed to be exploring, sure, that's easy. There's even one pic of one of these clowns hopping some fence somewhere, ooo. Buit no pics of the actual "adventures." I guess "Josh" lost all those pictures when he went to CVS to have them developed.

The funny thing is, you can save yourself a lot of time by just going online and viewing pictures of these things for yourself. Especially the City Hall station, there are tons of pictures of it available from the people that were in there during the tours.

Just stay away from this sham of a book, it's really a huge waste of time.

As someone very interested in urban exploration (especially in the subways) I wanted to check this book out upon hearing of it. After reading many of these Amazon reviews though, I opted out of a purchase, and took it out of my Bronx library instead. Thank goodness as I only wasted valuable time, and not any money.

This book is a sham. It is obviously mostly fiction. And it's boring fiction at that. The book is divided into chapters, each chapter a new "adventure."

I read the subway one first, where the "explorers" take the 6 train around the loop at the end of the line, to see the City Hall Station, which opened in 1904 (NYC's first station) and closed in 1948. The station is located on the loop of the 6 train, that makes the southbound trains go back up north after the last stop, Brooklyn Bridge. First of all, anyone can go on this "adventure." Just stay on the train at the last stop, Brooklyn Bridge, and that's it. Despite the author's attempt to make this sound risky, no conductors walk through the train to see if anyone is on (like they really care), just sit down. The author created some "European tourists" that inadvertantly stayed on the 6 after the last stop, and the author even tries to create some mystery by saying "are we on the wrong train?" Well, unless all those huge "6" signs that are lit all over the train are difficult to read, then you probably got on the correct train. The author also fails to mention that the MTA used to give public tours all the time through this station (and others like the 18th street on the 6 and more) but stopped after 9-11. This chapter was a joke. (UPDATE: The MTA now gives tours through the original City Hall station again.)

I started reading the other chapters, and saw they were no better. I then started to breeze through the book. One thing that is very obvious - no photographs of the adventures are in the book at all. This, despite the fact that on page 67 the author states, "Josh takes out his camera and snaps away at every pipe and puddle..." But no photos of their "adventures" are in the book. Why? Because it's fiction.

There are photos of what they are supposed to be exploring, sure, that's easy. There's even one pic of one of these clowns hopping some fence somewhere, ooo. Buit no pics of the actual "adventures." I guess "Josh" lost all those pictures when he went to CVS to have them developed.

The funny thing is, you can save yourself a lot of time by just going online and viewing pictures of these things for yourself. Especially the City Hall station, there are tons of pictures of it available from the people that were in there during the tours.

Just stay away from this sham of a book, it's really a huge waste of time.

If the writing and adventures could match the inflated perceptions that the authors have of themselves, this would be a great read. Unfortunately, the writing is downright pedestrian and the urban adventures are either lackluster and/or poorly described. Also, the flow of each chapter is interrupted with uninteresting asides and juvenile commentaries on a scattershot laundry list of topics.

A typical example of this is the uninspiring breakin of an abandoned Harlem row house. The author starts off with a truncated textbook-like history of Harlem that lasts a few paragraphs. Once that boring bit of exposition is done with the writer and his friends drive around a little bit and then enter an abandoned building. They look around a little bit (not exactly thrilling) and then attempt to leave via the fire escape. Here, we are presented with a another aside about the author's 'love' of fire escapes.. "What, in fire escapes, do I admire?... their constancy... firm as Gibraltar... like Ulysses to his barque.. supporting, as Atlas, the gravid snows of winter". Ugh, at times like this you wish the author would have consulted with an editor.

Not everything is terrible. Things pick up here and there, there are a few interesting tid-bits of history, but overall the book does not live up to it's potential.

This book was a tremendous disappointment. Many of the "missions" are laughably boring and/or carried out in a stunningly inept fashion, much of the writing is markedly narcissistic in its tone and yet inconsistent in content, and perhaps most disappointing the descriptions of the places where the authors go are remarkably poor.

First, the missions. The mission to the UN mostly involves trying to get inside by asking for an interview. Wow, it's like working for my high school newspaper all over again. Once they're shot down, one member of the team briefly sprints past a barrier and `explores' a plaza outside the building for less than a minute (the main point of which is to hold up the Jinx flag while his friends take his picture). Another involves staying on the subway even after the conductor announces passengers should get off! - oh the bravery and cunning!. This is made all the more ridiculous when two non-English speaking tourists inadvertently do the same thing and when the authors do not even get off the train once it's stopped at the abandoned subway station they had planned to explore. Later, they go into an abandoned house, where they discover that a lot of other people have also done this over the years.

Second, the writing. Much of the text focuses on how cool they look in their "uniforms" (dark suits and sunglasses), how cool they look walking to their missions, how cool they look on their missions, how cool it is when they all get together and how everybody else in New York are mindless zombies who don't appreciate what is around them because they are trapped in their sad, meaningless lives. The whole uniform thing is particularly stupid. There's one throw-away sentence explaining that they wear these uniforms because otherwise "scientists" and "philosophers" will not take their "empirical data" seriously, but you simply can't shake the feeling that they just want to look like they're either in "Reservoir Dogs" or "The Matrix" (particularly when the ridiculous `uniforms' keep attracting attention when they're trying to sneak into some place.) Throughout the book the authors bounce between stressing that they explore places for the scientific, empirical value of doing so and that it is not at all for a sense of adventure, only then to talk later about how much fun the adventure of it all is (including one author's admission that he believes the other has a death wish and that is why he engages in so many dangerous activities while exploring). In addition, much space is taken up with various diatribes on the evils of modern life (including a particularly passionate rant against the United Nations that comes totally out of nowhere), and all the horrible twenty-somethings of the world who spend their lives drinking iced coffees (which is a particularly hollow complaint when - a few pages later - the Jinx crew sits down to iced coffees after having screwed up the UN mission). You almost get the sense that after trying in vain to improve the writing, the publishers finally decided to spin the writing as "witty" and hope that people fell for it.

Finally, the descriptions are no better than what you'd get if you wrote down what you think the locations look like without ever actually going. The Croton Aqueduct is dark and slippery. An abandoned subway station is eerie. When you're on top of the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River looks a long way away. And that's about as good as the descriptions get.

Don't waste your time or your money.

I was so excited to receive this book, and can not believe how dissapointing it is!! The people aren't urban explorers (UErs for short) - they are children who dress up in costumes and give each other "gang" names and then proceed to perform daredevil-like stunts which are not very impressive.
The book starts out talking about two of the teams failures - City Hall Place and the Croton Acqueduct, which makes you want to put it down and watch grass grow instead. I've been past City Hall Station many times on the downtown 6 train, even with my Mother, it barely even qualifies as daredevil. Their train stops while looping through the station and they are standing right there, but decide not to jump off - don't write a book about it then!! Croton acqueduct is equally as sad - they walk through the tunnels for hours, then stop before the actual bridge (the goal) because they are tired - go back the next day and do it right, or don't write a book about it!!
Any yes, there are no pictures, although they refer to their pictures all the time.
The writing is pretentious and annoying and pointless for the most part - I want to read about "Exploring the Tunnels, Ruins, and Rooftops of Hidden New York" not about your evening spent in twin donuts looking like freaks and scaring people!!
Do yourself a favor and don't buy this book - there are better books about urban exploration, particularly ones about the NYC area.

Very interesting subject; wish authors had provided more substance. Very disappointed with lack of photos especially with constant reminder of photographers who were amongst group of explorers. I too also have my doubts regarding editors/publisher of this book.

Would NOT recommend purchasing.

This interesting book tells the story of a group of urban explorers who seek out and search city ruins in New York City. The book is enjoyable and a fast read, but sometimes the place that the explorers check out don't seem that intersting. Sure, there is generally lots of history in the places they explore, but the book doesn't really tell much about that. Instead, the book seems to focus a little too much on the whole cloak and dagger aspect of urban exploration. Regardless, I did enjoy the book and it is a recommended read.