Bradley Garrett is a mild-mannered academic by day. By night he’s a renegade explorer, scaling skyscrapers, traipsing through abandoned subway tunnels, and infiltrating World War II bomb shelters—mostly places with big “Do Not Enter” signs out front.
In other words, Garrett is a "place hacker," and part of a new global movement with active groups from London to Melbourne to Milwaukee. These urban explorers find adventure, adrenaline and awe in places that most people don’t dare enter. Often they get a few history lessons sprinkled in also.
“The idea behind urban exploration is revealing what’s hidden in the world.” says Garrett. “It’s about going into places that are essentially off-limits and, because they are off limits, have been relatively forgotten. The goal of the urban explorer is not just to explore these places but also to photograph them and share these with others so they can see what they’re like.”
Who are these explorers? And, why do they do what they do? According to Garrett, place hackers are really ordinary folks: teachers, doctors, a few IT guys, a student or two. What brings them together is the desire to come face-to-face with the overlooked spaces all around them.
“Cities are so densely packed. But when you start wandering into derelict areas and looking around, all of a sudden it occurs to you that there is vast, empty space everywhere.” Garrett says abandoned buildings and tunnels in various states of decay can be “incredibly beautiful," even if they are off-limits for various reasons of health and safety.”
Garrett acknowledges that not all these explorations are strictly legal. “In the UK, trespassing is not a criminal offense, but a civil offense. In the U.S. we take more risk, but there’s a large community in many U.S. cities despite these risks.”
Like nature explorers, place hackers tend to value a low-impact credo: no vandalism or theft, take only photographs, leave only footprints.
Garrett has been to some of the world’s most outrageous—and mundane—hidden urban spaces, and has the pictures to prove it. But, he says, one of the more important things that place hacking affords you is moments for quiet contemplation. “It’s kind of hard to get when you live in a big city. You can walk into a derelict building and be totally at peace and by yourself.”
“I’ve changed the way I thought about my city and the way I think about what’s possible” says Garrett. Citing one of his favorite writers, the UW’s William Cronon, Garrett points out that “Wildness is everywhere… often it’s just about paying attention.”