Sitting in the center of the city, yet somehow tucked away from interaction, is this beautiful old church. A cement wall around the outside keeps it guarded from the public. The building itself showed very little signs of vandalism or abuse other than that of mother nature. The roof had naturally deteriorated and fallen in, leaving the church open to the sky. Open to the heavens, if you prefer. Trees from the outside are now overgrowing the building, slowly creeping more inward using the walls as support. Tucked in the center of the city, it’s like the building didn’t even exist. The inside was silent from the rest of the world, just a light breeze and the rustling of the overhanging leaves. Someone had taken the liberty to draw a complete love story where the center of the altar would be. Complete with well drawn pictures, arrows and words. It was almost romantic; one or two of the lovers breaking into an abandoned church to document their story. Somewhere they knew others would see it, and interpret it. Once we exited the building we were approached by a few teenagers with BB guns, or “street kids” as Patrick called them. They questioned what we were doing in the building, we told them we went to take pictures but the camera wasn’t working. One of the kids pointed to a man in a car and said his father was with internal security and wanted to speak with us. The man put down his window and yelled to the boys, “bring them.” We put our heads down and quickly left the area, they continued to yell to us but we didn’t look back. I asked my cousin if what the kids said was true, he told me he didn’t know but it wasn’t a chance he wanted to take.

The far building seen sky-lining all others is known as Murr Tower. This was once used as a Syrian Sniper tower during the “Battle of the Hotels.” It is now currently controlled by the Lebanese army. It is yet another unfinished building that at one time used to be the tallest in the city, giving snipers a lethal view on almost anything happening.
This shot came on a rainy day when parts of the country were experiencing severe flooding. Yes, even in the middle east. I picked my vantage point (which happened to be another unfinished building) and entered through the basement. There I found several vagrants using the building as shelter from the storm. They watched me for a while, uneasy of what I was up to. I pulled out a cigarette and a child came over to me and offered a lighter, I used it and thanked him. I stood there for a while longer, until I felt that they had stopped watching me. Eventually I proceeded to look around, finding a staircase that went upward. I climbed at least ten flights of stairs, dodging human feces for lower ones but progressively getting nicer the higher I went. The middle of the building had cement floors and stairs, cleaner than the bottom floors, but still unfinished. As I neared the top the stairs changed from the cement to marble. First partially finished, then fully trimmed with handrails. I found this RPG hole about two thirds of the way up and set up my tripod on the beautiful marble floor while the heavy rain pattered the cement roof above me. When i finished I put the rain cover on my backpack and descended back down to the basement floor. I managed to hail a cab but not being able to speak the language, he was only able to bring me within a few miles of our house. I didn’t care, I began to walk in the direction I best estimated was home. Eventually I made it back to our neighborhood. I turned onto our street and could see my grandmother, sitting on the balcony waiting for me. I could tell she had been stressing out, I mean I had been exploring the city by myself for the greater part of the day. I entered the front door, dripping wet I began to strip the cold clothes off of myself. My grandmother came over and began to yell at me in Arabic. Eventually she embraced me, then proceeded to the kitchen to prepare me a warm meal.