To get to know a strange city up close, you have to be one above all: running.Places can be deciphered on foot marches, their streets, shops and residents, their sounds, smells and tastes.Matt Green has literally continued in the city of New York.He had decided to run every street, every path, every park and every public space in the city.Estimated route: 12.800 kilometers, roughly the country path from Berlin to Tokyo.
TWA Hotel time trip to the 1960s: a visit to the retro lounge over the roofs of Manhattan
17 BilderGreen has been on the road for seven years, a few kilometers and street blocks are added every day.He sleeps on the sofa with friends, sometimes he takes care of their cats or dogs in return.What was born from the boredom of his desk job as a civil engineer has turned into a long -term study of a metropolis with 8.5 million inhabitants.Green meets people and shakes hands, he discovers plants, takes photos and reads the city's history.And he holds everything on his blog."I'm just walkin", the website is called, "I'm just running."
Go and stop
As a religious or political gesture, walking can be traced far back.Muslims have been piling up to Mecca, Jews to Jerusalem and Buddhists in Tibet for centuries.Freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi marched in protest against British salt tax in 1930.And over the Jakobsweg, the most famous pilgrimage route in Europe, more than 300 reached last year.000 people the Spanish Santiago de Compostela.
There are also dozens of travelers who cross the United States on foot or the whole world.Dave Kunst became known in 1974 as the first man who circulated the world on foot.The Canadian Jean Beliveau was on foot for eleven years to overcome its midlife crisis over 75,000 kilometers and to promote "peace and non-violence for the good of the children worldwide".He wraps 54 pairs of shoes and came through 60 countries.Others went to very long foot marches to draw attention to cancer or Parkinson's.
But it is not all about such a higher sense, a record or a concrete goal is not at all."I don't really know what the point is," he says in the new documentary "The World Before Your Feet".After the campaign, he did not want to be a city guide nor write a book.Green wants to discover the city and just runs because he wants to run."I fascinate me the most who just do something because they want to do it," he says.
Heart, soul and pulse of the city
Even college professor Bill Helmreich, who started New York from 2008 to 2012, had the big whole and systematic in mind.Green, on the other hand, deals with the individual parts, says Helmreich in the film, in order to find forgotten groove paths, dead construction projects or where the highest tree in the city can be found.Green discovered coconut halves in waters (presumably part of a Hindu ritual) and raised bristles of street cleaning vehicles.He describes "heart, soul and pulse" of the city, says Helmreich about Green.
TWA Hotel time trip to the 1960s: a visit to the retro lounge over the roofs of Manhattan
17 BilderIn the end, the possibly the most detailed online city guide that New York ever had.Because the memorial for Eric Garner, who died after police force, or the tombstones of artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Magician Harry Houdini are also special knowledge for New York connoisseurs.And where else are the estimated 300 official, private and handmade monuments for the terrorist attacks from 11.September 2001 cataloged?
Green's inner -city world tour stimulates traveling more slowly.To let your head arrive where aircraft, trains, buses and cars have put your body at a high speed.The rushing environment becomes invisible to these passengers, explains Green of a school class.The world shows itself with him with the simplest processes of human motor skills - walking and standing - from a new, old side: "If you run, you can stop and look at them."
