Hidden Cities:
Travels To the Secret Corners Of the World's Great Metropolises
A Memoir of Urban Exploration
There is a particular type of human, the kind that, as a child, would lift up big rocks and get a sense of wonder at all the critters that inhabit their own ecosystem hidden from our sight. These types of people get to adolescence and do things like skip school so they can climb through a broken window or a hole in a wall so they can hang out all day with their friends in an abandoned building, smoking cigarettes and telling dirty jokes. Maybe they go on to exploring abandoned tunnels or climbing up scaffolding on construction sites. Motivated by an undying sense of curiosity,
foolhardiness, thrill seeking, and a desire for hidden or forbidden knowledge, these explorers may carry these practices into adulthood, making their urban exploration into an eccentric hobby. Now think about how the introduction of the internet changed the way people socialize. These urban explorers used the worldwide web to reach out to each other, find partners for exploratory travels, exchange tips on safety and locations, and anything else that might be relevant to their lifestyle. This is where Moses Gates comes in; his book Hidden Cities documents the urban excavations he goes on, the cultural scene of urban exploration, and other odds and ends in his world travels.
Moses Gates is an interesting character. He got his post-graduate degree in urban development, something that sparked his interest as he explored the more obscure and remote parts of his adopted hometown of New York City. He approaches the subject matter with a degree of intellectualism. For him, urban exploration is as much an educational experience as it is one of adventure and aesthetic indulgence. Gates usually has some knowledge about the history and architectural designs of the places he visits. This kind of intellectualism might put off some readers who just want to read about the adventure, but for the rest of us it adds another dimension to these excursions, putting these hidden places into context, and detailing how they are living and breathing parts of a functional city-scape. Probably his greatest insight though is that most of these places are blocked off with signs that warn of danger or penalties for entering them illegally. For Gates, these signs are invitations rather than barriers and he extends this thought to say that many people are hemmed in by barriers that do not actually exist. For him, urban exploration is a liberating activity, one that transgresses established rules and frees his mind so that he can always be open to new possibilities. Having said that, Gates does not explore this theme of transgression to any great length in the rest of the book.
Most of the places Gates explores are in New York. There are hidden sections of skyscrapers, abandoned buildings, and subway tunnels, some of which are abandoned and used as galleries for graffiti artists and living spaces for homeless people. His knowledge of New York’s architecture and urban design are interesting as are his appreciation for street art and his friendships with the so-called Mole People, those who use the subway tunnels as their home. His advocacy for the marginalized is well in line with his attitude toward crossing boundaries. He also climbs some of New York’s bridges. His descriptive writing is adequate, but it isn’t great. He gives just enough information to give a sense of what it feels like to stand, illegally, on top of a city bridge evoking giddiness and butterflies in your stomach. But this descriptiveness is limited to the first few places he visits. After describing a couple bridge climbs, he doesn’t go through the bother of writing so much in later chapters, merely mentioning that he did it. This is a big weakness in this book.
Other interesting places he goes are in Paris, Russia, and Ukraine. Paris is especially exciting as he goes on multi-day explorations of the catacombs, sewers, and aqueducts that run under the whole city. He also has an interesting chapter about getting arrested while climbing the bell tower of Notre Dame and being dumb enough to ring the bell in the middle of the night. Underground travels in Moscow and Kiev are similar and interesting for similar reasons. Again, his mixture of historical knowledge and aesthetic awe make these passages good. The other places he visits in Europe, North Africa, and Latin America are less than spectacular in their descriptions.
Another facet of this book that is interesting, but also underdeveloped, is the culture of urban explorers. Gates’s main travel companion is a photographer named Steve who drinks and smokes heavily and is prone to injury. The others are people he meets online, a cast of characters that includes artists, drop outs, permanent globe trekkers, drifters, wanderers, druggies, secretive tour guides who survive by leading urban exploration tours, and those who like to have sex in unusual places like the top of the Brooklyn Bridge. This isn’t a sociological study of this subculture and Gates doesn’t go into much detail about it Doing so might have made the narrative a bit more complete.
The rest of the book is just “stuff” and by that I mean travel experiences that might have been exciting but aren’t described well and sometimes feel irrelevant to what the book is intended to be about. A good case in point is a passage where Gates describes how much he is suffering because he has to take a dump on a very long drive to La Paz, Bolivia. This part isn’t just irrelevant and uninteresting, but it also sticks out in a sad way because he waxes more poetically about this situation than he does about anything else he writes about.
Hidden Cities is the kind of book you only read once. Moses Gates writes in a way that brings everything to the surface so that there is no question about what he intends to say. There isn’t much room for interpretation. It’s got some interesting ideas and Gates does a good job of making urban exploration look appealing, but the weaker parts drag it down overall and neutralize any merits the book might otherwise have. I can’t say Hidden Cities is bad, but like a magazine article, it’s ephemeral and certainly not destined to be a classic.
foolhardiness, thrill seeking, and a desire for hidden or forbidden knowledge, these explorers may carry these practices into adulthood, making their urban exploration into an eccentric hobby. Now think about how the introduction of the internet changed the way people socialize. These urban explorers used the worldwide web to reach out to each other, find partners for exploratory travels, exchange tips on safety and locations, and anything else that might be relevant to their lifestyle. This is where Moses Gates comes in; his book Hidden Cities documents the urban excavations he goes on, the cultural scene of urban exploration, and other odds and ends in his world travels.
Moses Gates is an interesting character. He got his post-graduate degree in urban development, something that sparked his interest as he explored the more obscure and remote parts of his adopted hometown of New York City. He approaches the subject matter with a degree of intellectualism. For him, urban exploration is as much an educational experience as it is one of adventure and aesthetic indulgence. Gates usually has some knowledge about the history and architectural designs of the places he visits. This kind of intellectualism might put off some readers who just want to read about the adventure, but for the rest of us it adds another dimension to these excursions, putting these hidden places into context, and detailing how they are living and breathing parts of a functional city-scape. Probably his greatest insight though is that most of these places are blocked off with signs that warn of danger or penalties for entering them illegally. For Gates, these signs are invitations rather than barriers and he extends this thought to say that many people are hemmed in by barriers that do not actually exist. For him, urban exploration is a liberating activity, one that transgresses established rules and frees his mind so that he can always be open to new possibilities. Having said that, Gates does not explore this theme of transgression to any great length in the rest of the book.
Most of the places Gates explores are in New York. There are hidden sections of skyscrapers, abandoned buildings, and subway tunnels, some of which are abandoned and used as galleries for graffiti artists and living spaces for homeless people. His knowledge of New York’s architecture and urban design are interesting as are his appreciation for street art and his friendships with the so-called Mole People, those who use the subway tunnels as their home. His advocacy for the marginalized is well in line with his attitude toward crossing boundaries. He also climbs some of New York’s bridges. His descriptive writing is adequate, but it isn’t great. He gives just enough information to give a sense of what it feels like to stand, illegally, on top of a city bridge evoking giddiness and butterflies in your stomach. But this descriptiveness is limited to the first few places he visits. After describing a couple bridge climbs, he doesn’t go through the bother of writing so much in later chapters, merely mentioning that he did it. This is a big weakness in this book.
Other interesting places he goes are in Paris, Russia, and Ukraine. Paris is especially exciting as he goes on multi-day explorations of the catacombs, sewers, and aqueducts that run under the whole city. He also has an interesting chapter about getting arrested while climbing the bell tower of Notre Dame and being dumb enough to ring the bell in the middle of the night. Underground travels in Moscow and Kiev are similar and interesting for similar reasons. Again, his mixture of historical knowledge and aesthetic awe make these passages good. The other places he visits in Europe, North Africa, and Latin America are less than spectacular in their descriptions.
Another facet of this book that is interesting, but also underdeveloped, is the culture of urban explorers. Gates’s main travel companion is a photographer named Steve who drinks and smokes heavily and is prone to injury. The others are people he meets online, a cast of characters that includes artists, drop outs, permanent globe trekkers, drifters, wanderers, druggies, secretive tour guides who survive by leading urban exploration tours, and those who like to have sex in unusual places like the top of the Brooklyn Bridge. This isn’t a sociological study of this subculture and Gates doesn’t go into much detail about it Doing so might have made the narrative a bit more complete.
The rest of the book is just “stuff” and by that I mean travel experiences that might have been exciting but aren’t described well and sometimes feel irrelevant to what the book is intended to be about. A good case in point is a passage where Gates describes how much he is suffering because he has to take a dump on a very long drive to La Paz, Bolivia. This part isn’t just irrelevant and uninteresting, but it also sticks out in a sad way because he waxes more poetically about this situation than he does about anything else he writes about.
Hidden Cities is the kind of book you only read once. Moses Gates writes in a way that brings everything to the surface so that there is no question about what he intends to say. There isn’t much room for interpretation. It’s got some interesting ideas and Gates does a good job of making urban exploration look appealing, but the weaker parts drag it down overall and neutralize any merits the book might otherwise have. I can’t say Hidden Cities is bad, but like a magazine article, it’s ephemeral and certainly not destined to be a classic.
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