I first met Bradley Garrett in the autumn of 2015, with both of us giving talks at an event about how what often gets called ‘adventure’ might be given greater social purpose.
I went first, and talked about the many acts of kindness I’d received when cycling around the world, but questioned how we could build institutions that reflected the core humanity those kindnesses seemed to indicate. Brad spoke of how, as an urban explorer, he felt it important to get into places – under the ground or above the city – that we are not necessarily allowed to enter. He reasoned that it was by testing the limits that you got a greater sense of the architecture, and so the society and values, that we build for ourselves. Afterwards we talked about our different approaches to geography and writing: we got on well.
It was later that winter, however, in a lightweight aluminium boat in the middle of the Hudson River, beneath the central span of the Tappan Zee Bridge, that I actually met Brad – in that way you get to know a person better. We were filming a man paddling a boat made from the rubbish of New York City, as it made its way through the cranes, winches and concrete columns of the new bridge under construction, while the traffic roared across the old Tappan Zee, and huge oil barges ploughed through the waters of a river turning tidal.
