The World’s Tallest Slum: Rare Look at an Illegal Ghetto in the Sky

GODREKR · #1 ● 08-07-2013, 06:40 PM

Welcome to the world’s tallest slum: poverty-ridden Venezuela’s Tower of David. Squatters took over this very unfinished 45-story skyscraper in the early 1990s, and they’ve been there ever since. The tower was originally intended to be a symbol of Caracas’ bright financial future, complete with a rooftop helipad, but construction stopped because of a banking crisis and the sudden death of the tower’s namesake, David Brillembourg.

Today, as the government is grappling with a citywide housing shortage, the tower is a stark monument to what could have been in the country’s crime-plagued capital. The tower is dogged by accusations of being a hotbed of crime, drugs and corruption. But to residents, many of whom have spent their entire lives there, it’s just home.

Watch as Vocativ climbs the tower and gains rare access to residents’ daily lives inside this unique and sinister establishment.

Few cameras have been allowed into the depths of the tower. It is an experience not to be missed.

Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions over social media.

●Question: When was The Tower of David built?
Answer: Construction began in 1990, but stopped in 1994 during the Venezuelan banking crisis.

●Question: Are all the tower’s residents poor?
Answer: No hard data exists on the residents’ income level, but the man with the flat-screen TV is a chef, the man and woman living together work as a radio host and fashion designer, respectively, and another female resident in the video works as a nurse.

●Question: How do they have electricity in the apartments?
Answer: The tenants jerry-rigged power from the grid early in the occupation and residents lugged the appliances to their apartments.

●Question: How is this different than Judge Dredd?
Answer: Judge Dredd has way better slow-motion than Vocativ’s rare footage inside the tower.