Help with Baltimore locations for screenplay (Manchester: appointed, school, live)

[AdamEnglish]

I'm writing a screenplay set in Baltimore but have never been there. The main character lives in a rundown part of town (I've heard Herring Run, Gardenville and Sandtown-Winchester are a bit rough - true?). He works in a sheet metal factory (any ideas for a name of such a factory) and hangs out a lot at local diners and bars. If anyone lives in a rundown part of Baltimore, even the ones named above, and can give me names of any bars, diners, hangouts - plus the name of a mall and a high-school - that this character could be going to, that would be great. Thanks.

[kates212]

Aren't authors better off if they write about what they know? In order to write about Baltimore, I think it would be best to experience Baltimore first. Nobody will be able to explain to you what it is really like here. You need to experience it first-hand.

[I95]

Seems like everyone these days wants Baltimore as the setting.

[fmtoy]

Originally Posted by AdamEnglish

I'm writing a screenplay set in Baltimore but have never been there. The main character lives in a rundown part of town (I've heard Herring Run, Gardenville and Sandtown-Winchester are a bit rough - true?). He works in a sheet metal factory (any ideas for a name of such a factory) and hangs out a lot at local diners and bars. If anyone lives in a rundown part of Baltimore, even the ones named above, and can give me names of any bars, diners, hangouts - plus the name of a mall and a high-school - that this character could be going to, that would be great. Thanks.

I know about baltimore its where Im from and I was thinking about screenwriting about it.

[barante]

People always write about places that they have never seen. It's the atmosphere that counts. For example, millions have formed their image of Casablanca on the basis of a movie script by six writers who never had been there. If you visited the real thing, you would be disappointed.
Then there are authors who actually know the place but fictionalize it. Read William Manchester's 1953 novel, The City of Anger. It's about Baltimore, even though the author never calls the city that. (Manchester, at the time, worked for The Sun and lived on Eutaw Place). A New York Times reviewer called the result "an open, bleeding slice of the U.S.A."