Byberrians
Jiff Pop Crew (JPC)

Mr. Motts
Goddog
Radical Ed
Mike Dijital
Beef
Jiffy
Robbie Knobbie
Red Dragon
Wanky
Buck
Homopex

These are just a few of the "famous" urban explorers'. Names one will find posted all over the internet & scrawled all over the walls of various abandoned locations. A great number of UE enthusiasts have been instrumental in attracting a massive amount of attention to abandoned locations by showing up in large groups, wearing brightly colored clothing, yelling & making noise, walking around carelessly in broad daylight, shining flashlights at windows by night, & many other overt activities lacking the most basic common sense.
Away from these locations, certain urban explorers display the same sort of behavior. Several websites & forums dedicated to UE include the names of locations & maps of the grounds. Forums have been repeatedly infiltrated by law enforcement officials & used to locate & seal off entry points. Tom Kirsch (aka Mr. Motts), moderator of the undisputedly most popular UE website, opacity.us, claims to adhere to a strict code of ethics concerning urban exploration. Mr. Motts purposely mislabels MOST of his locations, although a little bit of "connect-the-dots" on a search engine easily reveals his encrypted surnames for these places. Many state hospitals & training schools are posted on his site by name, attracting slews of people with varying motives to these places. Mr. Motts claims to never give out location information. He was true to his word when I inquired about a location to test his response. He did, however, forsake his vow when I asked my friend, a very attractive Asian goth girl, to ask. Motts also makes it very clear that he does not condone vandalism. He makes it very clear through his actions that he does not condemn vandalism either. He is closely affiliated with a group who calls themselves "the byberrians", monikered after the now demolished Byberry State Hospital where their club was invented.
The byberrians are notorious serial vandals whose name has been splattered all over the walls of several beautiful Victorian asylums. Usually accompanied by trash, broken glass, & burned & broken furniture. The surnames of these self-professed byberrians appear on the walls & facades of state hospitals mainly in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, & Massachussets.
Aside from the byberrians, other UE enthusiasts have been known to lead walking tours with up to 20 people through abandoned state hospitals, causing security teams to increase their forces & patrol more frequently. Also, legal penalties have become stiffer for trespassing. These activities, not to mention barbecues, raves, & other large gatherings, have caused the proposal of demolition to be pushed hastily through several city councils, robbing preservation societies of precious time & ultimately sealing the demise of these endangered edifices.
There are many who care deeply about the preservation of history & wish to see these places as close to their original state as possible. Many compassionate souls feel called to brush away the dust of history, find the truth, & convey to the living a message from those who had no voice.
Some do this in search of justice for the living. Others wish to help ill-contented souls find solace.
On the other side of the spectrum, many attempt to scare themselves & those around them by fictionalizing & exaggerating what they see. For example, a barber chair becomes a restraint chair & an x-ray machine becomes an electroshock machine. What they fail to realize is that the reality is much more grim. & so these places of great suffering become amusement parks for hordes of individuals who have never experienced the horrors of incarceration or even poverty for that matter. As Mr. Motts said, "...this affinity for derelict structures & often dangerous excitement is the core essence of urban exploring that drives me." This attitude has attracted many people from privileged & often sheltered backgrounds who are oblivious of the anguish once endured within the walls of these various institutions. As a result, their lack of empathy & sympathy leads to the total disregard of property & secrecy.
A great deal of the locals in towns containing abandoned asylums feel a sense of entitlement to these places, making them their clubhouses to do with what they will. Within these cliques certain games are commonplace, such as: finding the morgue, finding a certain piece of medical equipment, finding paperwork, taking pictures of certain objects or rooms, taking the most impressive roof shot, putting tags in hard to access areas, & taking pictures of the most abandoned locations, of course. This one-upmanship contest has had enormous negative repercussions, nullifying the preservation efforts of legitimate historians, providing proverbial ammo for corporate developers to spearhead city councils with plans of demolition due to safety concerns.
So it would seem that, through the self-centered, bone-headed actions of an overwhelming number of people, the halcyon days of urban exploration are over forever, never to be rekindled.

Quotes by Mr. Motts:

*I carpooled down to Philly with Drew, Ember, and a guy called Gonzo... we met up with Radical Ed, one of the first Byberrians, and Goddog, who could find his way into and out of anywhere in the Berry. [too many people]

*After a discussion about a possible tunnel connection to this particular building, they decided to see if the paddy wagon left yet. So we headed back downstairs and waited at the stairwell for Goddog to check the situation. A voice boomed over the first floor, "YOU GUYS BETTER GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!" We did a 180 back up the stairwell, but I wouldn't consider it at a running pace... [attracting attention]

*While walking down one of the many long dark hallways of the above-ground corridors, a loud crash erupted from the other end. A tall shadow emerged from a side passage and slowly lumbered up to us, kicking down wooden boards and tossing objects across the floor. I quietly folded up my tripod and put my hand on my knife. Perhaps sensing our unease, Ed laughed and said "Don't worry, that's just Lanky." Lanky was an extremely tall young man and he looked pretty pissed off, but actually he turned out to be friendly, at least to us... maybe because he knew our guides.So Lanky joined us for the rest of the trip, randomly kicking things and lighting small fires as we went. He recounted a four alarm fire he proudly started a few years back... I believe it included tossing a stack of flaming mattresses off the roof. [associating with serial vandals]

*While we were discussing Gonzo's health, Ed left to take a piss and never returned. We all started roaming the halls yelling Ed's name, but he completely lost us somehow. [yelling?]

Quotes from the Philadelphia Herald:

*Every weekend night, as many as 100 urban explorers infiltrate the hospital's condemned property in groups of threes and fours, seeking souvenirs, photos, evidence of the paranormal and the thrill of slipping through a crack in the city's blueprint. [forums advertise to everyone]

*Drawn by urban legends, curiosity and a vast network of online forums and personal Web pages, these self-styled "Byberrians" gather on the site's rooftops and in its tunnels to drink, smoke and share stories. [forums ruin locations]

*A handful of regulars leave their pseudonyms on its walls: Radical Ed, Buck, Wanky, Red Dragon, Beef, Goddog, Robbie Knobbie.
[vandalism by UE "celebrities"]

*But the very tool that has made the sport accessible to so many may be the cause of a tipping point that could lead to the downfall of this solitary activity. For older adherents, the Internet’s effects haven’t always been welcome. Originally drawn to urban exploring by the allure of a blank space on the map, they are often dismayed to find those blanks filled in by Web users. With their haunts revealed to the general public and to snooping police, explorers now contend with the increasing presence of well-informed law enforcement as well as hordes of less respectful trespassers who commonly vandalize and burn abandoned spots. [thanks motts & friends]

*Also, after learning that many of the kids were getting into the tunnels and buildings through a surface grate in a grassy portion of the property, police saw that the “field entrance” was shut down.
“Since that’s been fortified, the stealth entrance to that location has been eliminated,” Martin said.
All agree, however, that the only way you can end it totally is to take away the incentive.
“The best way to take care of that problem is to demolish all of those buildings, then the fun goes away,” Grady said. [says it all]

The halcyon days are over indeed...