The Two Men Walking Every Block in NYC

Two men set out to walk every block in New York City. They didn't know each other, and they didn't plan the same project—it just happened that they were both doing it. Matt Green is 1,426 days into his walk, having covered 7,009 miles on foot.

And then we have William Helmreich, a professor of sociology at CUNY, who has walked approximately 6,000 miles, though he doesn't use the geotagged technology employed by Green. Helmreich prefers paper maps, and he seems to talk to everybody he sees along the way. He also wrote a book based on his walk.

The New Yorker caught up with each of them, and then had them meet on the street, in this short documentary. This is just a blast, and I love seeing how two people doing roughly the same thing can approach it so differently. (I also learned some trivia about West Nile Virus and parakeets in the middle.) Enjoy:

(Note: Matt Green previously walked across the United States from New York City to Rockaway Beach in Oregon. It took him 157 days, and he made a photo map along the way.)