Secrets and highs of urban explorers
DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME OR ON TOP OF YOUR HOME, WARN POLICE
LONDON’S amazing landmarks, bridges, skyscrapers and secret spaces are great to look at, and admire, from a safe distance.
But we’re not really supposed to try climb up them, or even worse, jump off!
But that is exactly the mission of the socalled ‘urban explorers.’
Ask them and they’ll tell you that when they do it right, they come and go without anyone ever knowing they were there.
But a new generation of daredevil urban explorers are becoming a serious concern for the people whose jobs it is to keep people safe in the City.
And the authorities are getting increasingly twitchy about it.
What’s been going on?
There have been some extreme recent cases of urban exploring.
In one infamous case, City of London Police have revealed, a YouTuber they caught last year, had ignored London’s little-known bylaw which bans anyone from jumping into the River Thames and backflipped off Tower Bridge.
“He did a backflip off the balustrade of Tower Bridge and into the River Thames,” PC Sam Lowe of City of London Police tells us.
“He even claimed afterwards he was going to jump off the London Eye. But that’s a huge danger – you’re going to get hurt.”
That time the “explorer” got himself a community protection order warning him not to climb on the balustrade of any bridge, PC Lowe says.
The banning of two such “UrbEx” explorers from the financial district, which governs a nice looking patch of towering buildings and bridges, was highlighted in a report to City of London Corporation councillors by local police just last week.
But the question of how to handle daredevils with social media followings in the hundreds of thousands is not only frustrating authorities.
There’s also a turf-war unfolding on London’s rooftops. That’s what some of those who take part will tell you.
Andy Kay, who runs urban exploring website Behind Closed Doors, has described a split between “old-school” adventurers, and those driven by exhibitionism, fame and money.
Mr Kay described urban exploring historically as an “underground hobby” - it was “an activity for the few, unheard of by the many”.
Behind Closed Doors urban explorer and photographer Andy Kay goes where most wouldn’t dare for the thrill of seeing London views from the rooftops.
“It was there in the background, available to those who looked, but never presented in mainstream media,” he said.
He says the hobby flew under the radar for a long time, because it fell in a legal grey area of trespassing - and while that’s against the law, it’s a civil, not criminal offence.
“Getting caught by the police, in the most part, means being asked to leave with a slap on the wrists.”
With a hobby that is largely unheard of, and the police finding few people who do it, that would be unlikely to change.
But the audience and participants are growing at a huge rate.
So just how popular is ‘UrbEx’?
An Instagram search reveals nearly 6 million posts including the “UrbEx” hashtag, with incredible photographic talent on display and breathtaking footage, in aweinspiring locations from skyscrapers to abandoned mansions.
Among them are daredevils showcasing adrenaline-rushing feats, with brand sponsorships, paid advertising posts, and merchandising. Extreme sports stars are a growing niche in the community.
Mr Kay said the social media and mainstream media fascination with striking photos, and footage of breathtakingly dangerous feats from some explorers has brought the activity to a wider audience.
But he claims by bringing widespread attention to the previously secretive adventuring is at risk of ruining it.
“The result is always the same – the location gets looted, trashed and ultimately destroyed due to the unwanted attention this brings,” he said.
He accuses some social media UrbEx stars of “glamorising” the activity with showy videos, and deliberately attracting police attention for hits.
“A select few have discovered that getting caught adds a lot of drama and excitement to a video, and now get caught, on purpose, on a regular basis.”
“To any true urban explorer, getting caught is considered a fail,” he adds. “Those in the core community want to get into a building, and then back out again, without anyone ever knowing we were there.”
Added to that, the instantaneous ability to share footage of a secret previous spot
online meant copycats would begin hitting it and drawing authorities’ attention immediately.
“It’s saddening, because once we could share the new places we had found with other like-minded people, but now we feel we have keep things a bit more private to avoid feeding locations to those who are making things too public,” he adds.
But what’s the real impact on police and other authorities?
Of course, it leads to disruption.
He says that while explorers had been trying to get into London’s restricted spaces for years, the drawcard of social media fame has made the problem worse in the City.
And despite people around the world finding entertainment in the spectacle, PC Lowe says it causes huge disruption.
Entire streets in busy London have had to be cordoned off because of people spotted on building-tops and bridges, using up police time, stopping traffic, and risking injury.
PC Lowe says Square Mile buildings’ owners are becoming increasingly worried about insurance liability, as well as the risk to the public beneath due to the damage one small item dropped from a height could do.
He adds he has heard of some London security firms had lost contracts after explorers managed to trespass: “This is something an explorer making a video might not think about – people ending up losing their jobs.”
But at the same time, social media stars’ exhibitionism can make a police officer’s job very easy too, notes PC Lowe.
“It gets them views, of course. But I get to see it too,” he said.
What about concerns over young copycats?
French climber “spiderman” Alain Robert had more than 100 high-rise climbs behind him before he drew the world’s attention scaling the 230-metre Heron Tower last October.
Robert completed his feat unscathed (aside from ending up in court and with a fine afterwards), but police worry about impressionable young copycats.
While most amateurs are unlikely to attempt to free-climb the face of a skyscraper like Robert did, young social media fans copying their YouTube heroes leaping off cranes and bridges and exploring sewers could result in tragedy, PC Lowe warns.
Some respected UrbEx professionals have already paid the ultimate price. Last June, famed explorer Rebecca Bunting, who was known for photographing abandoned spaces, was swept to her death in a flashflood while exploring a Philadelphia storm drain.
Celebrated New York explorer Instagrammer Christopher Serrano, known as “Heavy Minds”, was hit and killed in 2016 by an oncoming train as he tried to climb atop a moving carriage to photograph a “subway-surfing” attempt.
PC Lowe says there have been efforts in the UK to counter the risk of tragedy repeating here. He has spoken to business leaders who have been in talks with YouTube and are looking at asking the Information Commissioner’s Office to rip down videos showing dangerous stunts or emergency services being taunted.
He said he was aware of cases where YouTube had pulled content for those reasons already.
Community protection notices, criminal behaviour orders, aggressive trespass, criminal charges and injunctions are already being used by authorities to target explorers, he adds.
Court injunctions can also see people banned from entire areas, which has already happened in London’s Canary Wharf.
With plenty of crime to solve in the capital, PC Lowe is quick to point out it’s not a fulltime job: he might only issue a dozen warnings about UrBex in the Square Mile a year. But he says police UK-wide are finding themselves needing to spend precious time investigating and preventing disruption from the issue, noting there are also Met and Surrey officers now specialising in UrbEx investigations.
Abroad, UrbEx enthusiasts can find fewer rules. Some building owners even give their blessing for professionals to stunt and film at their sites, such as in Dubai, where some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers are found.
But PC Lowe suggests Londoners stick to rock-climbing walls.
“I don’t know what the Burj Khalifa health and safety executives think about this sort of thing, and I don’t know what to say about climbing London skyscrapers except, probably: don’t do it,” he says.