One Sociologist's Epic Quest: Walk New York City, All 120,000 Blocks

Sociologist William Helmreich likes to play a game with students in his intro class at the City College of New York. “You’re going to raise your hand and say what neighborhood you’re from,” he tells them, “and I’m going to tell you a story about it.” Though his students hail from all five boroughs, he’s never once been stumped, not by the edges of Brooklyn’s East New York, not by the village-like enclaves of Staten Island.

Because after 40 years of teaching in and about the city – and after spending nearly all of his 67 years calling it home – Helmreich’s seen it all. Now, this encyclopedic knowledge is quite literal. The ethnographer has spent four years on an epic quest to crisscross the city, walking all five boroughs, all 120,000 city blocks. He compares himself to a marathoner, regularly pulling out the statistic that his research has taken him the distance from New York to L.A. and back, plus another 900 miles, the equivalent of a side jaunt to St. Louis.