“It’s recording something that is there.”īell has made two underground films, “Go-Go Motel” and “Night Fifty,” but became discouraged when his filmmaking career did not take off. “That is the biggest compliment I can get as a filmmaker.”īut he said the films also serve a documentary purpose. READ MORE: 5K Race Kicks Off Countdown To Juneteenth “I’ve had people write me and say I can’t finish the video. “When I am scared, I will exude how I feel into the video,” Bell said. “I am preserving something on video for the future.”īell doesn’t consider himself an urban explorer, but a filmmaker who takes risks in order to create thrilling short films. He says he prefers to shoot at night for the effect. He doesn’t carry a weapon, but brings a respiratory mask and extra batteries for the light on his camera - the only light he carries. Really, people should just leave it to me,” Bell said. “I completely agree with his assessment that these vacant buildings are extremely dangerous.
He recalled exploring an unsecured building where he thought someone was coming inside after him. He said he once fell through the rotted floor of an abandoned home, and has come across homeless people squatting.
Police discourage it.īell said he has been stopped by police or security guards but has always been able to explain why he’s there and what he’s doing. Urban exploration often involves trespassing on private property. Posts on Flickr, Reddit, Facebook and YouTube show the growing interest in exploring and documenting the often shocking transformations of once-bustling spaces now devoid of life. He is one of a group of people who risk injury, death or possible trespassing charges to investigate the interiors of abandoned structures and sites that have been left to deteriorate in the elements. The clips on “This is Dan Bell” are simple: He tours abandoned sites - a resort in the Poconos, psychiatric hospitals, even a shuttered Lone Star Steakhouse.īell has a sub-specialty in “dead malls”: suburban shopping centers, some of which are abandoned, and others that struggle with only a handful of tenants. The video Bell made is one of more than 100 he has posted to his YouTube channel. Now, it’s more a symbol of the city’s manufacturing decline and blight. He went to the plant at Sinclair Lane and Belair Road to document the inside of the decaying structure that was once a symbol of Baltimore’s blue-collar workforce.
“I’m trying to get people to see something they would never ever get to see,” Bell said.
His goal: to record footage of the derelict site to share with a growing online audience. READ MORE: Santander, Mountcastle, Odor Homer As O's Beat Royals 10-7 Without hesitation, the 39-year-old Baltimore man squeezed through a cut in the chain link fence and walked over layers of debris to a dark doorway. Goetze meat-packing plant in East Baltimore, and arrived at the unwelcoming side entrance. But filmmaker Dan Bell left the safety of his warm car, pushed through the shoulder-high weeds, the Newport cigarette wrappers, the old tires and warped pieces of plywood that have overtaken the asphalt outside the long-closed Albert F. BALTIMORE (AP) - The sun went down, leaving only the light from a flickering street lamp.
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