This thread reminds me of something I hadn't thought about in a long time. When I was in my early teens, I explored what appears to be the Dicktown Nike Base. (according to Google Earth) It was the late 80's and, of course, at that time, it wasn't part of our culture to take pictures of everything so unfortunately, I don't have any pictures, so you'll have to rely on my literary imagery
and pictures I've found on the internet that resemble what I remember. At this time, the base was kind out of in the middle of nowhere, so I never had a reason to walk around or ride my bike in the area, but my friends and I noticed what appeared to be an overgrown military base when we rode by in the car with our parents and we decided to check it out. Our parents just told us it was a Nike Missile Base, but had no other information. Of course this was long before the internet so we had no idea what to expect or what we were getting into. So, we packed up our backpacks, met at our friends house that was closest to the base, got on our bikes and set out to find out. We told our parents we were just going for a bike ride.
Right next to the base is a cul-de-sac of rancher style homes, that we assumed was were the folks who worked on the base lived. I remember being surprised at what good shape it was in. Even from the 1994 aerial, you can't even tell it is abandoned:
There was no fence or any barricade at all that I recall, I think we just rode our bikes right up the street. Several of the houses were open and we just walked right in the front doors. I recall they were also in decent shape on the inside too, there were couches, tables, chairs and fireplaces. In the backyard were those old style clotheslines. In retrospect, I wonder if the homes were still used even after the base closed?
Anyway, we felt a little exposed in that open neighborhood, so we went the end of the road and around the back of the base, and entered through a broken fence.
The base was in worse shape than the neighborhood, very over grown and almost jungle like. There were several open buildings with remnants of the equipment in each. We were Cold War era kids, so we imagined siting at the controls, ready to launch a missile at any time.
There were these tall, vertical cylinders with platforms on top, which, at the time, we thought were the missile silos. We climbed up to the top to find out that there were flat, concrete platforms on top with no hole for the missile, so then we were perplexed. They looked something like the white cylinder structure with the platform on top, at this site: (except rusty, rickety and overgrown)
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/17593
We continued to scour the base, but never could figure out where the missiles would have been stored. It was weeks or months later that we found out there was another site, maybe a half mile away!
From outside the fence, at a distance, it looked like an old, very large, overgrown blacktop parking lot. But upon closer inspection, there were several, large pairs of doors, probably 10 ft by 50 ft each, flat on the ground. The doors like like the second picture on this site:
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/aviation/nik.htm
Near each door was what looked kind of like a bilco door, that went down underground. Both the missile bay doors and the bilco doors were welded shut, very securely. We sat down, disappointed, thinking that our exploration had come to an end. Then we noted behind each door was what appeared to be air intake pipe. They looked like the red lid in the 3rd picture on this site:
http://www.techbastard.com/missile/nike/ba43.php
We checked every one and, sure enough, we found one that was loose and we pried it off. Now we were staring down into an about 2 ft wide, pitch black, pipe. Shining our flashlights down, we saw it was probably only about 8 ft or so down to the stairway landing. There were 3 of us and we had a rope. We all couldn't go down because we wanted to leave two on the surface to the pull the third person up with the rope. So, I volunteered to go down alone. I tied the rope around me and my friends lowered me down until I got to the landing. It was dry and very, very dark. Again, since there was no internet to research before I went, I had no idea what to expect.
I walked down the rest of the steps and shined my little flashlight around, hoping to see a missile pointing at me, but alas, there was only the platform it was mounted on.
It very much looked like the second to last picture at this site, except much much older looking and much darker and creepier
http://ed-thelen.org/F-45-LaunchArea.html
After exploring the underground launch area, I signaled to my friends and they pulled me back up. I never had the opportunity to go back again after that.
The Base (Control Area) was here:
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.75124781625551&lng=-74.99925949935333&z=17&type=nj1995&gpx=
and the Launcher Area was here:
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.741130130447814&lng=-75.00199535254852&z=17&type=nj1995&gpx=
You can see that in 1995, the base appears to still be fully intact:
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.751128211038306&lng=-75.00025728110687&z=17&type=nj1995&gpx=
By 2002, all the houses were gone, but the base was still there:
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.751128211038306&lng=-75.00025728110687&z=17&type=nj2002&gpx=
and now, it is all gone:
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.751128211038306&lng=-75.00025728110687&z=17&type=hybrid&gpx=
Likewise, the Launch area is also completely gone:
http://maps.njpinebarrens.com/#lat=39.74142670210674&lng=-75.00222870473281&z=19&type=hybrid&gpx=
I still have a vivid memory of this exploration and, unfortunately, in this hyper protective parental environment, teens of today would probably never get to experience something like this.
