Artist Marie Lorenz operates the “The Tide and Current Taxi,” which takes visitors to hidden or little-known destinations by boat, and documents their journeys. In this issue, she takes a mysterious stranger to the Island of the Dead in the New York Harbor.

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On each trip, I take one or two passengers and we visit places around New York that most people have never heard of. Some are wild, over-grown, abandoned places where herons nest along deserted creeks. Some places seem like garbage dumps—industrial canals where the sludge of oil and debris is so thick that my little boat has trouble moving. Most of the places we paddle are within a few miles of Times Square.

The scariest place that I have ever been is Hart Island. This is the Island of the Dead, a potter’s field, where Rikers Island inmates bury unknown and indigent New Yorkers. The island is closed to visitors, but a few years ago I got an email from someone asking for a ride there in the boat. He was a photographer of closed-off and abandoned places, named Richard Nickel Jr. For an explorer, Hart Island is the crown jewel of New York.

Usually when I get a request from a stranger, I ask another friend to come along. In the case of Hart Island, though, I couldn’t. The mission was too dangerous. We would be risking arrest and steep fines. I even pictured being discovered out there by inmates and secretly being buried alive. The only thing I knew for sure about Richard Nickel Jr. was that he was using a fake name.

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Read more in Issue 7, out now.