The Basement

The basement of the building contains the freezers that once contained the food for the third floor restaurant/mess. From one wall still hangs the meat scale. Entrance to the deep freeze shows a band saw, and the meat hooks still hanging from the freezer.

Also included at this level are the shops that were once responsible for the maintenance of the building, as well as the elevator maintenance room. The elevator is a hydraulic lift style elevator, requiring no separate shaft for the counter-weight. This is efficient because of the layout of the building.

In the carpenter's shop, the tools and supplies are spread between two rooms. One room contains the bench-mounted router, and a belt sander. There are various free-standing power tools, like you'd find in any wood shop.

The pipe shop is no more than a room with tools, sealants, cleaners, and small replacement parts for the piping of the building. No supply of piping is stored in it. Two of the cinder blocks from which the wall is constructed are missing, though they are clean holes, making it look like their removal was intentional. One missing brick is on the North wall, the other is on the East wall. Each void faces into the building.

There is a small lounge near the Northwest end of the basement. It is intended for the state-workers of the building. It contains a table, and a sink.

"Cathy's office," or the electric shop is full of all gauges of wire, and many of the replacement conduits and fixtures for the electricity supply to the building. It is named "Cathy's office" because it seemed to be the place where one could always find Cathy, a state worker who maintained the building. After her retirement, it retained the affectionate name.

The welding shop sits in the same area as the massive boiler for the building. Acetylene and oxygen have been long removed, rendering the shop a vacant space. Cutters and benders still remain. A large, angled flood door separates this room from the boiler when the need arises.

Inside the boiler room is the electricity panel for the building, as well as a large storeroom, and an entrance to "the tunnels." The tunnels are merely an access for the various steam, water, and waste pipes that supply the building, and once fed and filtered the pool. Many electric and communications cables also snake through the tunnel. Rumors about the tunnel state that the tunnel used to run all through the city and connect to key locations including the mayor's office, and Stout Field, an Indiana National Guard air field. One area branches off to service the rotunda of the building. In this area, flat panels of cement lay in several inches from the rest of the wall. The rumor says that these were the filled-in entrances to the tunnels extending miles through the city.

As shown in the original floorplans of the building, a rifle range was located just beneath the south stairs. The range did not extend very far, probably utilizing a hand-turn pulley system to draw paper targets to or away from the shooter. In the research done, it is unclear if the included picture is the range inside of the armory, or if it was taken in the Quonset hut that housed the Marine Corps element nearby.