The Gist – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Gist
Host: Mike Pesca
Episode: Jeremy Workman — “Walking Every Block, Hiding in a Mall”
Date: October 25, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features two engaging interviews with documentary filmmaker Jeremy Workman, highlighting his work chronicling extraordinary quests: first, with Matt Green, who set out to walk every block in New York City (“The World Before Your Feet”), and second, with Michael Townsend, who secretly lived with fellow artists in a shopping mall for four years (“Secret Mall Apartment”). The conversations explore the motivations, challenges, and philosophical takeaways from these unique projects, while delving into how such pursuits reflect and critique urban life and culture.

Segment 1: Walking Every Block of New York City

(with Matt Green & Jeremy Workman; “The World Before Your Feet”)

Introduction to the Quest

[05:54] Mike Pesca introduces Matt Green's audacious challenge to walk every block in NYC.
Matt’s self-imposed rules required covering all public streets, as well as parks, cemeteries, beaches, boardwalks, and bridges.
Matt has devoted nearly seven years to the endeavor, with about 500 miles left to walk.

Logistics & Motivation

[06:43] Matt Green: “I have maybe 500 miles left, probably about 95% of the way there.”
[07:03] Matt expands on his rules: “The basic rule is walk every block of every street, which then became every block of every public street... I’ll walk parks, cemeteries, beaches, other coastline, bridges, you know, various pathways.”
[07:35] On thoroughness: “If there’s a long cul de sac... you have to walk all the way to the end.”
Pesca, amused: “Jesus Christ.” Matt: “Tap the end with my finger. I watched you tap many.”

Documentary Perspective

[07:57] Jeremy Workman on choosing Matt’s story:
“By doing this really simple thing and being sort of meticulous about it and really passionate about it, all this sort of interesting stuff is exposed in this amazing city... you don’t really know just how deep it goes.”

Notable Observations and Quirky Details

[09:43] Pesca revels in Matt’s obsessions with “barbershops with a Z in the title,” and discusses the taxonomy of Chinese restaurant names.
[10:26] Matt notes urban oddities, like “animal cannibals” (businesses using cheerful mascots of animals for food stores).
[11:08] Matt reflects: “...someone will mention a person like, ‘oh, I’ve been to his grave.’ And Gil Hodges is one of those. He’s in Holy Cross Cemetery. Yeah.”

Balancing Life and the Project

[12:03] On dating:
Pesca: “How do you go on dates if you have to go out and walk?”
Matt: “I don’t go on a lot of dates. The date is, ‘do you want to walk?’”
[13:10] Matt eschews regret: “I don’t even feel like it’s a sacrifice... this is just what I wanted to do and I didn’t want these other things.”

Attitude Toward Urban Sameness and Judgment

[14:05] Matt describes the project as “an exercise in not judging. It’s... just about observing. And I think from that process, I’ve learned how to appreciate a lot of things that... maybe have some redeeming qualities that you could appreciate.”

Queens’ Street-Naming System Explained

[17:15] Pesca asks Matt to explain the convoluted street system in Queens.
[19:11] Matt delivers a poetic explanation: “Best avenues, roads and drives run west, but ways to north or south ‘tis plain, or street or place or even lane, while even numbers you will meet upon the west and south of street.” — Poem by Ellis Parker Butler, Flushing poet

Memorable Moments & Quotes

Pesca: “You’re in every frame [of the film] except when they cut to the friends going dodge that bullet.” [20:46]
Matt Green on movies: “I’m not going to pay theater prices. Are you kidding me?” [13:28]
Matt on Staten Island: “You would love it. There’s a lot of awesome stuff in the city.” [14:53]
On monotony: “My life prior to this... staring at a computer screen... no one ever asked me, like, ‘oh, isn’t that job so boring?’... walking two blocks that maybe have the same styles of architecture, like, I can deal with that.” [15:56]

Segment 2: Living in the Secret Mall Apartment

(with Michael Townsend & Jeremy Workman; “Secret Mall Apartment”)

Background: Providence Transformation & Artistic Resistance

[23:43] Michael Townsend describes Providence, RI, in the 1990s:
“The city had big hopes and dreams. Buddy Cianci was at the helm... super corrupt, but... got things done.”
Artists thrived in cheap mill buildings until a new mega-mall catalyzed gentrification and displacement.
[25:50] “These two dreams, these two like... streets cross each other in around 2000, the mall opens, and developers are now like, hey, this seems like a pretty developer-friendly city. Let’s... bring in more developers... And there begins the great tension... hundreds of artists lose their studios and homes.”

The Secret Mall Apartment Scheme

[28:15] After losing homes to urban renewal, Michael and others began stealthily living in Providence Place Mall:
“In 2003... we did week in the mall based on the idea that we should get to know the mall intimately... your number one problem becomes where do you sleep at night?”
[31:30] Jeremy Workman recounts first hearing of the story:
“You hear it and you’re like, oh, this is some clickbait thing... But when you kind of start peeling that onion, you start realizing, like, wow, there’s so much more to this. It’s this stance against gentrification... It was this, you know, stage that they were creating to sort of show the world.”

Art, Protest, and Living at the Margins

[33:16] Michael:
“The reason we pulled it off for as long as we did is because of the other types of art that we were doing... We were used to sort of living in that gray space between legal and not legal... I feel that this is an important thing to do. And I’m willing to take the risk...”
Michael and his team previously undertook a guerrilla 9/11 memorial in NYC using life-size tape silhouettes.

Documenting the Experience

[36:17] Jeremy:
“First of all, it was astonishing when I found out how much they had filmed. They had filmed 25 hours inside this secret apartment in this mall.”
[37:13] Michael:
“The reason we’re filming is because our tape artwork is temporary... That puts you in the habit of documenting everything... We were shooting it basically for in-house... That footage was parked on a hard drive... and we were able to handle it.”
— On the unexpected value and survival of their documentation.

Technological and Cultural Context

[40:03] Michael relates:
“I was arrested about two months after the iPhone came out. So... the video is being shot at arm’s length... very different than it is now.”
[41:42] Pesca observes that secrecy and subversion would be impossible today with social media:
“The whole point of this was that no one could know. And that’s just totally antithetical to the ethos of today.”

Remembering the Era of Malls

[42:23] Jeremy:
“It reminds you about what malls meant... people really thought malls were these great places that we could all come together... It really was not that long ago.”

Standout Quotes

Michael Townsend: “We were used to... living in that gray space between legal and not legal.” [33:31]
Jeremy Workman: “One of the greatest, like, pranks you’ve ever seen committed to film... but then you start realizing... it’s this stance against gentrification... this artwork unto itself.” [31:30]
Michael Townsend: “The reason we’re filming is because our tape artwork is temporary... That puts you in the habit of documenting everything...” [37:13]

Notable Timestamps

[05:54] – Introduction to Matt Green’s walking project
[07:03] – Walking rules and logistics
[09:43] – Eccentric urban details: barbershop names, animal mascots
[13:10 – 13:33] – On sacrifices and moviegoing
[17:15 – 19:11] – Renaming and organizing Queen’s streets; street number confusion
[23:43] – Providence’s artistic heyday and the coming of the mall
[28:15] – Secret mall apartment origins
[31:30] – Peeling back the story’s deeper meanings
[36:17] – Filming inside the secret apartment
[41:42] – Impossible secrecy in the social media era
[42:23] – What malls once meant

Final Thoughts

This episode smartly juxtaposes two journeys: one of relentless urban exploration (Matt Green’s walk) and one of ingenious resistance to urban transformation (the secret mall apartment). Both are rooted in curiosity, a sense of mission, and a refusal to be passive amid the ceaseless shift of modern city life. Through Jeremy Workman’s eyes, the stories become meditations on observation, place, and subversive creativity.

Recommended for listeners curious about:

Urban exploration and street-level anthropology
Art as protest and the artist’s life on the margins
The changing meanings of city spaces in American life
The interplay between personal obsession and public culture

The Gist – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Gist
Host: Mike Pesca
Episode: Jeremy Workman — “Walking Every Block, Hiding in a Mall”
Date: October 25, 2025

Episode Overview

Segment 1: Walking Every Block of New York City

(with Matt Green & Jeremy Workman; “The World Before Your Feet”)

Introduction to the Quest

[05:54] Mike Pesca introduces Matt Green's audacious challenge to walk every block in NYC.
Matt’s self-imposed rules required covering all public streets, as well as parks, cemeteries, beaches, boardwalks, and bridges.
Matt has devoted nearly seven years to the endeavor, with about 500 miles left to walk.

Logistics & Motivation

[06:43] Matt Green: “I have maybe 500 miles left, probably about 95% of the way there.”
[07:03] Matt expands on his rules: “The basic rule is walk every block of every street, which then became every block of every public street... I’ll walk parks, cemeteries, beaches, other coastline, bridges, you know, various pathways.”
[07:35] On thoroughness: “If there’s a long cul de sac... you have to walk all the way to the end.”
Pesca, amused: “Jesus Christ.” Matt: “Tap the end with my finger. I watched you tap many.”

Documentary Perspective

[07:57] Jeremy Workman on choosing Matt’s story:
“By doing this really simple thing and being sort of meticulous about it and really passionate about it, all this sort of interesting stuff is exposed in this amazing city... you don’t really know just how deep it goes.”

Notable Observations and Quirky Details

[09:43] Pesca revels in Matt’s obsessions with “barbershops with a Z in the title,” and discusses the taxonomy of Chinese restaurant names.
[10:26] Matt notes urban oddities, like “animal cannibals” (businesses using cheerful mascots of animals for food stores).
[11:08] Matt reflects: “...someone will mention a person like, ‘oh, I’ve been to his grave.’ And Gil Hodges is one of those. He’s in Holy Cross Cemetery. Yeah.”

Balancing Life and the Project

[12:03] On dating:
Pesca: “How do you go on dates if you have to go out and walk?”
Matt: “I don’t go on a lot of dates. The date is, ‘do you want to walk?’”
[13:10] Matt eschews regret: “I don’t even feel like it’s a sacrifice... this is just what I wanted to do and I didn’t want these other things.”

Attitude Toward Urban Sameness and Judgment

[14:05] Matt describes the project as “an exercise in not judging. It’s... just about observing. And I think from that process, I’ve learned how to appreciate a lot of things that... maybe have some redeeming qualities that you could appreciate.”

Queens’ Street-Naming System Explained

[17:15] Pesca asks Matt to explain the convoluted street system in Queens.
[19:11] Matt delivers a poetic explanation: “Best avenues, roads and drives run west, but ways to north or south ‘tis plain, or street or place or even lane, while even numbers you will meet upon the west and south of street.” — Poem by Ellis Parker Butler, Flushing poet

Memorable Moments & Quotes

Pesca: “You’re in every frame [of the film] except when they cut to the friends going dodge that bullet.” [20:46]
Matt Green on movies: “I’m not going to pay theater prices. Are you kidding me?” [13:28]
Matt on Staten Island: “You would love it. There’s a lot of awesome stuff in the city.” [14:53]
On monotony: “My life prior to this... staring at a computer screen... no one ever asked me, like, ‘oh, isn’t that job so boring?’... walking two blocks that maybe have the same styles of architecture, like, I can deal with that.” [15:56]

Segment 2: Living in the Secret Mall Apartment

(with Michael Townsend & Jeremy Workman; “Secret Mall Apartment”)

Background: Providence Transformation & Artistic Resistance

[23:43] Michael Townsend describes Providence, RI, in the 1990s:
“The city had big hopes and dreams. Buddy Cianci was at the helm... super corrupt, but... got things done.”
Artists thrived in cheap mill buildings until a new mega-mall catalyzed gentrification and displacement.
[25:50] “These two dreams, these two like... streets cross each other in around 2000, the mall opens, and developers are now like, hey, this seems like a pretty developer-friendly city. Let’s... bring in more developers... And there begins the great tension... hundreds of artists lose their studios and homes.”

The Secret Mall Apartment Scheme

[28:15] After losing homes to urban renewal, Michael and others began stealthily living in Providence Place Mall:
“In 2003... we did week in the mall based on the idea that we should get to know the mall intimately... your number one problem becomes where do you sleep at night?”
[31:30] Jeremy Workman recounts first hearing of the story:
“You hear it and you’re like, oh, this is some clickbait thing... But when you kind of start peeling that onion, you start realizing, like, wow, there’s so much more to this. It’s this stance against gentrification... It was this, you know, stage that they were creating to sort of show the world.”

Art, Protest, and Living at the Margins

[33:16] Michael:
“The reason we pulled it off for as long as we did is because of the other types of art that we were doing... We were used to sort of living in that gray space between legal and not legal... I feel that this is an important thing to do. And I’m willing to take the risk...”
Michael and his team previously undertook a guerrilla 9/11 memorial in NYC using life-size tape silhouettes.

Documenting the Experience

[36:17] Jeremy:
“First of all, it was astonishing when I found out how much they had filmed. They had filmed 25 hours inside this secret apartment in this mall.”
[37:13] Michael:
“The reason we’re filming is because our tape artwork is temporary... That puts you in the habit of documenting everything... We were shooting it basically for in-house... That footage was parked on a hard drive... and we were able to handle it.”
— On the unexpected value and survival of their documentation.

Technological and Cultural Context

[40:03] Michael relates:
“I was arrested about two months after the iPhone came out. So... the video is being shot at arm’s length... very different than it is now.”
[41:42] Pesca observes that secrecy and subversion would be impossible today with social media:
“The whole point of this was that no one could know. And that’s just totally antithetical to the ethos of today.”

Remembering the Era of Malls

[42:23] Jeremy:
“It reminds you about what malls meant... people really thought malls were these great places that we could all come together... It really was not that long ago.”

Standout Quotes

Michael Townsend: “We were used to... living in that gray space between legal and not legal.” [33:31]
Jeremy Workman: “One of the greatest, like, pranks you’ve ever seen committed to film... but then you start realizing... it’s this stance against gentrification... this artwork unto itself.” [31:30]
Michael Townsend: “The reason we’re filming is because our tape artwork is temporary... That puts you in the habit of documenting everything...” [37:13]

Notable Timestamps

[05:54] – Introduction to Matt Green’s walking project
[07:03] – Walking rules and logistics
[09:43] – Eccentric urban details: barbershop names, animal mascots
[13:10 – 13:33] – On sacrifices and moviegoing
[17:15 – 19:11] – Renaming and organizing Queen’s streets; street number confusion
[23:43] – Providence’s artistic heyday and the coming of the mall
[28:15] – Secret mall apartment origins
[31:30] – Peeling back the story’s deeper meanings
[36:17] – Filming inside the secret apartment
[41:42] – Impossible secrecy in the social media era
[42:23] – What malls once meant

Final Thoughts

Recommended for listeners curious about:

Urban exploration and street-level anthropology
Art as protest and the artist’s life on the margins
The changing meanings of city spaces in American life
The interplay between personal obsession and public culture

Jeremy Workman — “Walking Every Block, Hiding in a Mall”

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Summary

The Gist – Episode Summary

Episode Overview

Segment 1: Walking Every Block of New York City

Introduction to the Quest

Logistics & Motivation

Documentary Perspective

Notable Observations and Quirky Details

Balancing Life and the Project

Attitude Toward Urban Sameness and Judgment

Queens’ Street-Naming System Explained

Memorable Moments & Quotes

Segment 2: Living in the Secret Mall Apartment

Background: Providence Transformation & Artistic Resistance

The Secret Mall Apartment Scheme

Art, Protest, and Living at the Margins

Documenting the Experience

Technological and Cultural Context

Remembering the Era of Malls

Standout Quotes

Notable Timestamps

Final Thoughts

Summary

The Gist – Episode Summary

Episode Overview

Segment 1: Walking Every Block of New York City

Introduction to the Quest

Logistics & Motivation

Documentary Perspective

Notable Observations and Quirky Details

Balancing Life and the Project

Attitude Toward Urban Sameness and Judgment

Queens’ Street-Naming System Explained

Memorable Moments & Quotes

Segment 2: Living in the Secret Mall Apartment

Background: Providence Transformation & Artistic Resistance

The Secret Mall Apartment Scheme

Art, Protest, and Living at the Margins

Documenting the Experience

Technological and Cultural Context

Remembering the Era of Malls

Standout Quotes

Notable Timestamps

Final Thoughts