The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City

by William B. Helmreich

An intimate portrait of the Big AppleAs a child growing up in Manhattan, William Helmreich played a game with his father called "Last Stop." They would pick a subway line, ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood. Decades later, his love for exploring the city was as strong as ever.Putting his feet to the test, he decided that the only way to truly understand New York was to walk virtually every block of all five boroughs—an astonishing 6,000 miles. His journey took him to every corner of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Helmreich spoke with hundreds of New Yorkers from every part of the globe and all walks of life. He finds that to be a New Yorker is to struggle to understand the place and to make a life that is as highly local as it is dynamically cosmopolitan.Truly unforgettable, The New York Nobody Knows will forever change how you view the world's greatest city.

Genres: Nonfiction, New York, Travel, History, Cities, Urbanism, Sociology

466 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

William Helmreich was a professor of sociology at the City College of New York Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He specialized in race and ethnic relations, religion, immigration, risk behavior, the sociology of New York City, urban sociology, consumer behavior, and market research.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like ambitious blog projects and the way they always seem to nosedive. This is the pattern :

MY YEAR OF BALZAC

21st June 2011. Well here is the first entry of my Balzac blog in which I record my crazed attempt to read ALL of Balzac’s Comedie Humaine in one year! Yes, all 91 novels. It can be done! I Hope! Wish me luck and may my coffee never run out.
Started La Maison du chat-qui-pelote – only 150 pages! Easy peasy.

24th June. Finished La Maison and now on to The Ball at Sceaux whch is a mere 60 pages. This is much easier than I thought it would be. Balzac is ironic and depressing! Way to go! However, found I was reading these books in the wrong order, so am now on to Father Goriot which is 400 pages or so.

30th August. Summer hols and breakup with Debbie seems to have put Balzac on hold for a couple of weeks but now I am in sight of the end of Father Goriot. I will be heartily glad to bid the old idiot goodbye.

17th January 2012. Must apologise for lack of recent entries. I have now composed a rigorous reading schedule and intend to make regular progress reports each Wednesday and Sunday.

[No further blog entries to date.]

So William Helmreich had a big project all right, in fact it was enough to turn strong men to jelly. He intended to walk every street in all of New York, all five boroughs, and report back on what he found. And he made it, too. Well done! Go, Professor Bill! What a thing to think of, and what a thing to have done.

This made me think that his book about his remarkable feat (his remarkable feet!) would be really interesting, a kind of walking tour plus social history plus comment on all the arcana of New York, the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down, feeling groovy and everything.

Not so.

This was completely not the book I thought it would be. As I read, I found I was ever so slightly deflating, and finally I ended up flat and misshapen on the floor, and slightly squirming. It turns out that people who have interesting ideas and who then put their great ideas into practice aren’t necessarily interesting in themselves. I must regretfully inform you that the professor is … er… how can I put this without causing offence… monumentally dull.

First thing you notice is that he will not be describing his walking, he will be instead composing long breezily chatty – yes, bloggish – chapters about his favourite themes. No, not raindrops on roses. His favourite themes are : immigration, immigration, immigration, gentrification, gentrification, how public space is used by New Yorkers (I found out they walk about in it), how neighbourhoods are defined by ethnic groups, a lot of them recently immigrated, how religion is important, especially to immigrants, how entertainment happens quite a lot in the evening and not so much during the daylight hours… now you think I’m exaggerating for comic effect. All right, let the quotations begin.

Prof Helmreich uses several techniques to stultify your mind.

1. The sociowaffle. (What did he just say? What does that even mean?)

As it turns out, leisure-time activities such as entertainment, religious and ethnic events, sports, parks, and social gatherings can also be prisms through which other critical facets of life are refracted. Through them it becomes possible to understand what it is that unifies New Yorkers, how they identify, what they value, and how this crucial aspect of their lives enhances the communities in which they live.

[So, does a social gathering tell us that people value social gatherings, because, clearly, they are gathering socially? I think that's it, but I'm not really sure.]

2. The stunningly banal observation

A.

Processions, parades, and street fairs are another form of social life that present opportunities for expressions of unity and identity. Religious processions are held at various intervals in different neighbourhoods throughout the city. In areas where they do not take place, it’s because the neighbourhood is either too diverse or doesn’t have strong local religious institutions that push for them.

[So lemme get that right – the one of the main reasons religious processions don’t take place in some parts of New York is because no one wants them.]

B.

[He watches chess players in Morningside Park, Harlem.] I noticed a tall, younger man wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket who was standing by the table… he was talking on his cell phone, intensely engaged in, from what I could overhear, the details of a drug deal he was apparently making. … Could he be a regular player when he wasn’t dealing? Of course, many people have multiple roles in a variety of contexts. But was it fair to assume that because he was standing there he was a drug dealer and a chess player?

The Professor leaves the question blowing in the Harlem wind. Can a man be a drug dealer and a chess player? Hmm.

C.

Easy access to good public parks are a major reason why people consider certain communities worth living in.

Yes, agreed, also important is access to transportation systems, food supplies, including alcohol, and a low incidence of alien abduction. These are major reasons why some neighbourhoods are favoured over others.

D.

While we are on the subject of parks, you may have wanted to ask, well, exactly what does make a park such an essential feature of urban life? The professor is ready with the answer :

These spaces are critical… by making available opportunities for relaxation, reflection, and spending time with one’s families and friends as well as meeting new people.

So there, that is what a park is for.

E.

He observes in Tribeca that the clientele of a particular coffee shop serves Dominican food to Dominicans in the day but in the evening the clientele is mostly Africans. He figures out that the Dominicans work nearby, but don’t live there, however, the African guys work somewhere else, but live nearby.

Thus, the space usage changes according to what’s happening at different times of the day, and this is true of many city neighbourhoods.

And I bet he is right!

F.

He checks out a hotel on Box Street, Brooklyn, and concludes:

These moderately priced hotels in the outer boroughs of New York may become a trend if visitors from abroad begin gravitating to them.

[So they may become a trend if they become a trend.]


3. The blithe generalisation


New Yorkers are a highly opinionated lot and revel in their right to say and do as they please in almost any setting.

Sound like a bunch of un-house-trained anarchists to me. Not going to New York now!


4. The useless conversations

He walks around and strikes up conversations with anyone and everyone, and records them all. But it’s not all sociological gold, no, not by a long chalk.

I ask a Pakistani homeowner on the street why it’s called Force Tube Avenue. “I have no idea,” he responds. He’s only been living there about a year. But it’s an address he uses every day – on letters, job applications, drivers license, and so forth. Wasn’t he curious? And the answer is no.

Well, can you beat that. Now, how many of you know the derivation of your own street name? Let’s see a show of hands. Huh, surely somebody knows? No? But aren’t you curious? No? Well, us sociologists, we know why that is :

His attitude may reveal an interesting perspective – namely, that it doesn’t matter in his eyes, because it has no effect on him He’s too busy trying to make it in America to worry or even think about such things.

Hey Professor, you really nailed that one. Yeah, that’ll be why he has no idea why the street he lives on has the name Force Tube Avenue. Too busy thinking about the rent to consider street name derivations.

I admit to skipping the giant chapter about gentrification, I just couldn’t take any more of these boneless platitudes. If this book was food it would be prawn crackers, that terrible stuff made of polystyrene which doesn’t taste of anything, chewing linoleum would give you better in-mouth entertainment. I finally came to the last chapter which is called “Conclusions”. He lists 14 of “the most striking conclusions of this book”. He walked every street in New York City, over 6000 miles of paved and leaf-bestrewn surfaces, talked to hundreds of people, read a ton of other books about the city, and his first conclusion is

New York is an exceedingly rich and complex city made up of diverse peoples

If there is a second edition of this book it should be retitled The New York Everybody Kind of Already Knew

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fairly engaging in some ways, but pretty disappointing and even a little disturbing overall. It seems like a good idea, to take an in-depth, long-term, and personal journey through every neighborhood in New York. But the resulting observations and conclusions Helmreich offers are very superficial, usually unsurprising, and often condescending. He says some shockingly racist things and in a very offhand way. He repeatedly expresses surprise that he isn't robbed by black people, when in fact he as a sociologist should know perfectly well that white people are less vulnerable in so-called "dangerous neighborhoods" than black people are. He is constantly assuming people in housing projects are criminals, though he barely speaks to anyone who lives in them. He is pretty tone deaf in his repeated references to "street toughs," and "black males with low-slung shorts," who he unquestioningly perceives as criminals. Other egregious observations:
p. 83: "Once you get to know them, as the following conversation reveals, homeless people can be complex, entertaining, and even unique."
p. 162: "I see one of the many public housing projects in the Bronx rising into the cobalt-blue afternoon sky. 'Does anyone from there ever come [to the park he's in] to escape their grimness?' I wonder."

He also does little to analyze or add to our understanding about any of the complicated issues facing the city right now, like gentrification or debates about crime and policing. And for all the walking and interviewing he did, there are long stretches of the book that contain little engagement with interviewees. To be honest, you'd gain more insight into the city by reading "Humans of New York."

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had the potential to be a great book on urban studies and parts of it certainly were interesting. There were paragraphs that really caught the essence of NY for me, and the concept of only being able to know New York by pounding the pavements ring true, however I have some problems.

The main problem is that a lot of Helmrich's observations seem entirely anecdotal, without any frameworks from history or anything else for that matter. He'll take an anecdote from say a Hispanic guy on a street corner and extrapolate to all Hispanic guys ever.

The second problem is the structure, within one paragraph he will have jumped to and from about 5 neighbourhoods. It makes it hard to lose yourself in and you always wish he'd told you more. I guess this is the nature of such a big project, it's all spread very thinly.

I'd say this book is worth a flick through just for some of the stories of the city alone, but its no Joseph Mitchell or Jane Jacobs

[Aharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite sections include:

-That Time I Describe Myself as Almost Getting Mugged, But Based On The Telling It Seems Like I Was Just On The Same Sidewalk As Some Black Dudes

-Using Special Sociology Powers To Explain How It Might Be Rude To Laugh At Someone's Dead Father, Which Is a Valuable And Rare Insight

-Those 90 Pages Where I Paraphrase Census Materials

In the right hands a super-interesting idea can turn meh.

[Liam · Rating 4 out of 5]

It suprised me that there are so many bad reviews of this book becuase I found it very insightful and interesting. A good read for anyone who loves New York.
Unfortunately, the author passed away last week from Covid-19.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun exploration of New York City by a CUNY sociologist who walks every street in the city, talking to people along the way, reflecting and interpreting what they say.

For a sociological work, the book was fairly interesting. The author avoided jargon, though sometimes he delved into interpretations of what the subjects he was talking to were saying in a way that I did not find productive. At times, his project also seemed overly descriptive. Still, Helmreich has lots of interesting insights and his book was a way to get to know New York in a way that few people ever do.

I was surprised at how damning some of the Goodreads comments on this book are. I think that these readers may have missed what Helmreich was saying. He was not making normative claims about race or ethnicity, he is simply being descriptive of what others in the community say. So, when he reports that he was not mugged despite being an old white man walking through dangerous parts of New York, there is nothing really wrong with that because all he is doing is saying, "Many of the people I talked to thought that I would get mugged. I did not." He is not insisting that, as a white male, he was likely to get mugged nor is he suggesting that he is surprised that he was not mugged. Rather, he is just reporting what people often told him and explaining why those suppositions of others are wrong. Readers seeing more than this are not reading him right.

[Peter · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a great gimmick: sociology professor spends four years walking every block in New York City. I assumed the book would bring insights into the physical texture of the city, its variety of inhabitants, its odd and out-of-the-way places, the economic and political structures that have formed it over the centuries. Unfortunately I got none of that. In prose invariably wooden and at times downright undergraduate, Helmreich describes a New York that anyone could know from a quick scan of a Lonely Planet guide. His take is almost literally "in conclusion, New York is a city of contrasts." Here's an example, from page 349, of the profound, granular analysis achieved through his unprecedented sauntering: "There's tremendous variation among the city's neighborhoods. Some are a virtual UN, while others have only one or two ethnic groups residing within their confines. Some are on the water or adjacent to parkland, others in densely populated areas. There are areas with one-family homes and those that contain only apartment buildings."

Helmreich is also almost entirely blind to the larger forces at work shaping New York City. Despite entire chapters on gentrification and immigration, the book is wincingly ignorant of political, racial, and economic structures, and the author's man-on-the-street observations are taken for far more than they're worth. "You can walk through an Asian area and think of it as belonging to one Asian group," Helmreich writes, "but closer examination reveals that it's not." He muses that "many blacks feel more at home in their own communities" without any description of ongoing residential segregation through mortgage lending and other means.

Finally, the book is riddled with minor errors -- it's Teju Cole, not Teju Coles; there is no Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art -- that make the whole thing seem rather tossed off.

Folks, I would walk far away from this book. At least the author got some good exercise out of it.

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ramblings of a second-rate flaneur. Manages to be out of touch and otherizing at every turn. It's astounding that he walked every block in the city and still maintained a death grip on his obsessions with pervasive crime and racial stereotypes. Even a tourist who spends a weekend in the city has a deeper understanding of the basic humanity of the people living here.

Some quotes illustrating his "sociological" perspective and middle school book report prose:

"While I'm walking on the Lower East Side, I see a Chinese-owned seafood shop on Forsyth Street, between Rivington and Stanton Streets, called Lucky Fish. Hopefully the owners are lucky, but the fish that end up here certainly aren't. They're the opposite - dead, chopped up, and ready to be eaten. 'Lucky' is one of a small number of words that have special importance in Chinese culture, and indeed many Chinese stores bear that name." (191)

"Overall, gays have benefited from a sea change in public opinion as more and more New Yorkers have come around to the idea that gay people are entitled to the same rights as anyone else. Many people today feel that gays have a right to their lifestyles, even if it's not one they themselves would choose." (338)

[Leigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book a problem starting with the condescending title. I think what Mr. Helmreich meant is that he was writing about the NYC that upper middle class white people like himself (who happened to live in the suburbs) don't know. But surely the less affluent; middle and working class and poor; often black and brown; and often immigrant people who live in all the neighborhoods thru which he walked know these parts of NYC!
I was also disappointed with what seemed like Mr. Helmrich's endless obsession with crime in the low income neighborhoods and housing projects. Most of the people who live in these places are actually law-abiding citizens, but you would not have known it from this book!

[Mark McGranaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A man walks every street in NYC - more than 6,000 miles - and writes about his experience.

The book's focus is ethnographic interviews of residents that the author encounters on his walks. The author also draws on data from previous studies and his own observations to discuss issues like community, immigration, and gentrification in NYC.

At times the book loses its grounding and drifts into pure speculation about what the author's seeing. Overall the book is a bit rambling. The last chapter just repeated earlier material, and can just be skipped.

Even with its flaws, the book offers good perspective on NYC and its residents. Suggested for anyone who's interested in the city.

[Bugzmanov · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is mostly about views of the author about everything(immigrants, street gangs, businesses, minorities) than about the city. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but really not what you would expect from a title "The New York Nobody Knows". I would probably gave it 3 stars if the title wasn't THAT misleading.

[Aberdeen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Full disclosure: I read most of this for class but there are a couple chapters I didn’t get to. Overall, it’s a wonderful premise—a sociologist and long-time NYU prof literally walks all the streets of New York City and talks with locals he meets. However, it wasn’t as interesting or enlightening as I’d hoped. In fact, most of what he said was pretty obvious and even stereotypical of NYC. I can only remember one or two interesting anecdotes from it. Honestly I’d only give it two stars but my professor pointed out that this is the first all-five-boroughs sociological study of the city so there should be some grace for the scope of an unprecedented task. However, I look forward to when others take up the challenge of this book, explore what it scratched the surface of, and enrich our understanding of the greatest city in the world.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I watched a documentary several years ago which I cannot recommend highly enough: "The World Before Your Feet" is about a pleasant oddball who has decided to walk every street, trail, and wharf in New York City, estimated at over 8,000 miles. He's not doing it to make money or generate content, although he can't resist photographing the interesting things he sees and blogging about them. It's purely a labor of love to which he's subsumed most everything else in his life. He works sporadic odd jobs and couch-surfs so that he can dedicate all his time to the project. He eats mainly beans and rice and owns little more than what he carries on his back. It's a terrific film and it inspired me to check out this book by a City College of New York professor who decided to engage in a similar project.

Unfortunately I don't think this book captures the humanitarian joy that the film conveys. Helmreich approaches his project with an open mind and good nature and it seems to stand him in good stead, allowing him to visit neighborhoods that might generally be considered dangerous and chat with people who wouldn't generally care to be interviewed by an academic. But it's very dry and academic in tone and reads more like a sociology monograph than an accounting of what it feels like to explore a place so thoroughly. Not a bad book, but it didn't fully satisfy what I was looking for.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Twice as long as it should have been. He had a good idea - to walk down every street in the 5 boroughs and then write about his experience - but kind of ruined it with the structure of the book and his pedantic tone.

I would have preferred a more episodic, memoir style of writing. He wrote more in the form of a textbook. Very dry. I wanted more stories of personal interactions and less facts about the city that I could easily look up online if I wanted.

A fine idea that fell flat.

[CJ]

After starting the book, was shocked to then see Hemreich died from covid-19 on March 28 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/ny...).

I generally share the view of other Goodreads reviews I saw -> despite the intriguing premise of walking every street of NYC, Hemreich returned to two recurring themes of ethnicity and neighborhood safety with "post-racial" nostalgia (p.314).

For example, the story of meeting the Lubavitch-Hasidic dean of Middle School 22 in South Harlem raises interesting questions about religion and public schools (p.306), but is then shadowed by a shallow praise of NYC's diversity and "unusual encounters."

[Beth Lind · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically, it is the recounting of a man's adventures in walking all the streets in all the boroughs of NYC. I loved the concept but some of the details felt a bit bogged down. Still, the author addresses some controversial topics -- immigration, gentrification, crime... and he does a good job of seeing it with an open mind.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

This might be one of the most unreadable books about New York City in the history of unreadable books about New York City. My message to William B. Helmreich: please do not write anything else about New York City ever again.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty Good

The insight into New York City by the author is what gives this book its power. There are times I object to what he says but most of the time I agree. His walking tour and interaction with New Yorkers is quite valuable. I definitely think this is a book worth reading.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Six thousand miles walked by one man, covering near almost every street of New York City to explore the city and it's people as a whole, and sum of it's parts.

Reviewing perceptions of crime levels, housing types, community gatherings, religious and cultural groupings, and life experiences by chatting to people he encountered along the way across his mobile days.

Drawing conclusions about the effects of immigration, gentrification, and assimilation, of cultural inter-mingling and marriage. Looking at the uses of spaces, the value of parks.

The effects of immigration, the flow and growth of the numbers of undocumented, and the possible future of the city with these consideration are discussed.

This is a sociological study of one of the most diverse, cultural vibrant cities. It's interesting and dry in equal parts. There are tidbits I learnt, things that I think were obvious of any big city and people, and the specifics of gentrification I skimmed over at times.

I couldn't help but wonder...what this experiment would have found if the writer was non-white, or younger, ir a wonan. What the findings and observations would have been. What different interactions and perspectives would have been had.

This was also all done during the Obama years, and sadly I imagine perspectives and experiences, and thoughts of tolerance and integration, would be very different today.

[Viridian5 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This idea, of walking all five boroughs of New York City to get a better view of its people, is excellent. Too bad I ended up wishing so hard that someone else did it and wrote it.

In books like this, people generally take one of two paths: separating themselves out of the narrative to present facts and interviewees' stories or becoming a part of the narrative. William B. Helmreich takes the second option, but he's not an engaging narrator. He states many of his opinions as facts. His views on poverty, gentrification, and racism in New York City are far rosier than I, a native New Yorker, think the reality deserves. At one point he says that NYCHA housing structures were made too well, too strong, and that's why the poor residents don't move out and no one knocks them down to build something better, which ignores so many money-related facts of New York City (lack of affordable housing, developers' disinterest in building it, etc.) as well as coming off as somewhat offensive.

So disappointing.

[Jonathan Horowitz · Rating 2 out of 5]

It didn't quite seem to know what it should be. The guy walked 6,000 miles in NYC over the course of five years, but then uses that information to write broadly about ethnicity, gentrification, politics, foods, businesses, and plenty more. The book works when it's about the amazing and interesting things he discovered, witnessed, and engaged with on his walks, but seems to overreach when it deals with the more sociological aspects (many of which seem fairly obvious, but maybe that's just from having lived here--might be revelatory for others who've never been to the city).

[Heather Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

'This is New York. Get over it.' The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6000 Miles in the City.

What is the real New York? The iconic sights and shopping? The brownstones of a Woody Allen film? The projects and gangs? Or was Walt Whitman closer to it over a century ago when the real city forced him to contain 'multitudes'?

Native New Yorker and City College sociology professor William B. Helmeich took on a Sisyphean task: to walk nearly every block of all five boroughs as the only way to contain today's 'multitudes'.

The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 miles in the City is the result - a fascinating and reflective guide to the heart, mind and soul of New York.

Accompanied by his dog (New Yorkers like strangers with animals) and his sociological perspectives, Helmreich spent four hours on each of his walks over a period of four years.

Joseph Mitchell may have given us finer, more descriptive writing but he was in many ways a miniaturist. Helmreich is one too - the book teems with wonderful New York characters and conversations - but he also makes connections and gives us the bigger picture.

Helmreich's book is no anodyne guide: New York, as he shows us, might today be one of the safest cities in the US but there is still gangland activity and surprising behaviour.

On Broadway, near Jefferson Street, between Bushwick and Bedford- Stuyvesant he sees a man walking four large put bulls on leashes.

'As I took a closer look at him (I was walking sort of alongside him), I saw that he had two large boa constrictors around his neck. A minute later he stopped and encouraged a man to let his daughter pet the snakes. The man obliged and allowed one of the boas to wrap itself around his daughter, who showed only the slightest bit of apprehension - more like curiosity, it seemed. Only in an area like this could one see such a sight.'

And in case you want to avoid it, 188th Street, between Audubon and Amsterdam Avenues is, according to the police, the street in Manhattan where you're most likely to be shot, although mainly if you happen to be a drug dealer.

While recent Mayors have arrested them and put the homeless in shelters away from the centre, many still refuse to be removed.

James, a black panhandler and unemployed litho printer on Cliff and Fulton Streets, wears a white straw hat, black shirt and a multicoloured tie and works his pitch seven days a week.

'The police they know me and they see I'm causin' no trouble'. What's the biggest amount he ever got? 'A hundred dollars from some older woman. I was just askin' for some change. I was shocked. I went and paid my rent.'

Most people in New York don't of course live in brownstones or expensive apartments but humbler homes where they can bring up their families. and live among people who are like themselves.

Helmreich discovers Edgewater Park, off Throgs Neck Bridge, in the Bronx.
'Most of the homes are enlarged bungalows. There are no sidewalks, so the homes face narrow, mostly no-name streets with sections named with letters of the alphabet. Everybody knows everybody, and most of the people are either of Irish, Italian or German descent, overwhelmingly Catholic, and generally they work for the city as policemen, sanitation workers, or firemen. Some of the homes along the shoreline have beautiful views of Long Island, and many of the residents own boats.'

If a place is not quite suitable for your ethnic community you might prefer as Hasidim Jews have done to settle around a South Flushing project that's completely black and Hispanic. If you live on Staten Island you might either be like Dan and Louise who have lived there for thirty years and love its sense of community or else feel deep shame as a couple move into their mother-in-law's apartment there. 'A place so forsaken that not even Starbucks would set up a store there, nor even the most enterprising Thai restaurant owner.'

On the other hand, an older woman living on East Ninth Street in Manhattan's East Village admits that a village-like community can have its problems. 'Sometimes you just get tired of saying hallo to someone you passed by for the seventeenth time in a week.'

When it comes to New York's housing projects it's worth mentioning that these are among the best constructed and managed in the country and are rarely taken down; instead they're renovated. They currently have a seven-year waiting list.

Recent newcomers to the city make of it something rich and strange. As he's walking up East 167th Street around Grant Avenue in the South Bronx the writer comes across a Hasidic-looking man with skullcap, beard and tzitzis leaving a school building. He asks him what a religious Jew like him is doing there, only to be told he's the highly popular school dean and most of his pupils are Muslim. 'I actually it in pretty well. I'm just another weird dresser. Up here anything goes. In fact, very often they don't even realize I'm Jewish.'

He asks a waiter in a Harlem restaurant about his national origins. 'I'm everything' he responds. 'My mother is Gabonese and French, and my father is Polish and Chinese. I guess I'm just an American.'

Of course New York is endlessly surprising. A Ukrainian waitress is the only person in Edgar's Cafe on the Upper West Side who seems to know who Edgar Allan Poe is. Pete's Tavern on Eighteenth Street and Irving Place was where O. Henry wrote The Gift of the Magi and is the oldest tavern in the city. It seems like the idea place to take his literary wife until they arrive one evening to find it has been transformed into a raucous singles bar.

'What I do get out of the experience is a sharp reminder that one must try as much as possible to see New York City in the same locations at different times, because when is often as important as where. Day or night? Weekend or weekday? Winter or summer? It can be, and often is, very different.'

Of vintage New York conversations there are too many to quote. But how can we forget the deli owner who observes wryly that some customers walk through his door five or six times a day, acting as if it's their home. 'wearing pyjamas or stroking an iguana.' The attitude seems to be 'This is New York. Get over it. And of course, they're right. What would New York be without bad behaviour?'

Then there's the Harlem maintenance man criticizing Harlem's gentrified tenements. 'These apartments are worth $100,000. But if I gotta pay $100,000 to live somewhere, I wanna be where there's grass around me. These are just glorified tenements. You still gotta fix the leaks in the bathroom and the stove when it breaks. Any apartment where I can hear somebody burpin' next door is not an apartment that I want.'

Not forgetting the woman walking her dog next to the writer who confirmed actor Christopher North's resident status and pointed to the building where he lived. 'He was kind of snooty,' she said. 'I met him in the building - my son lived there too - and I said. 'Oh, you're from that cop show.' And I had the wrong one. And he said to me in a really cold tone, 'No, it's Law and Order.' And I said to myself, 'That's the last time ....'

One must, Helmreich reminds us, see old manufacturing New York while we still can in places like East Williamsburg. 'In general, these parts of the city come closest to what New York City used to be as a manufacturing centre. Here you'll still find granite factories, electrical parts centres, makers of heavy machinery, dried-foods producers, building materials suppliers, brick inventories, bus garages, shoe factories, pipe supplies, and the like. When manufacturing occupied more of a centre stage fifty years ago, artists didn't exist in the area. ' Street art and other artistic products are now common here as manufacturing has declined.

Which brings us, inevitably, to gentrification as the Big Apple has shifted from an industrial to a service economy. Gentrification comes in different forms, with something for everyone who can afford it. He sees North and Central Brooklyn as a case in point with a top tier including Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Dumbo and the next tier featuring East Williamsburg, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and others.

As for these gentrifiers who express surprise when they become a crime statistic a Brooklyn cop Helmreich meets has little sympathy. 'Well, what do you expect if you gonna live across the street from a project? And they be lookin' at their laptops in their cars, handling their portable GPS. They gonna have problems because they don't know what they hell they're doing. They shouldn't be moving here. They complain, but we can't be everywhere at once. You're a New Yorker. You wouldn't do that.'

And how do you know when gentrification is travelling south of 181st Street and west of Broadway? 'When you see a young Chinese American woman with two kids walking her dogs, accompanied by a Hispanic-looking man who might be her husband or boyfriend. Then another white guy comes along with his dog and is joined by a black woman and her dog, and they all have a fifteen-minute conversation on 163rd Street and Riverside Drive.'

Helmreich sees the pros and cons of gentrification and understands the problems in the outer boroughs but, like his Harlem maintenance man, his glass is usually half-full:

'You got white people, yuppies moving in here. All the prejudiced people, they died out. The yuppies don't give a shit. They just wanna get to their jobs. So that's how the neighbourhood completely changed. This is now a very interestin' neighbourhood. And it's a lot safer than it was before. Actually, in the early seventies Bradhurst was a very nice area. Then came the crack epidemic and it all changed. Now it's back to where it was before.'

Despite gentrification Helmreich feels the city has stayed authentic. 'It has historical cachet. If you want nostalgia, you only have to look for it in the right places. There are large stretches of Gotham that still retain the flavour of old New York. Traverse Bensonhurst or Bay Ridge, and you'll find the Brooklyn of Saturday Night Fever. Go on foot through Northeast Bronx streets and you'll find one-hundred-year-old homes and apartment buildings the norm, relatively untouched by gentrification.'

At the end of his 6,000 mile walk what emerges with great clarity 'is that New York today is a city that is enjoying a tremendous renaissance.' He sees this in the way New Yorkers are acutely aware that they live in one of the greatest cities in the world. 'It's a connection to an idea, embodied in a space and a state of mind that is far larger than themselves. It's there, they know it to be true, and so does everyone else who lives there.'

If Walt Whitman contained 'multitudes' within himself 'multitudes' this fine book contains multitudes more - the beating, dynamic heart of New York is here.

The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6000 Miles in the City, William B Helmreich, £19.95, Princeton University Press

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had previously read Helmreich's The Brooklyn Nobody Knows, which was a neighborhood by neighborhood walking guide to Brooklyn, and found it entertaining. I learned a little bit about each neighborhood, saw some cool pictures and read about the people that the author encountered on his travels. I expected this to be similar, but it is structured quite differently. Rather than organizing the book by neighborhood, Helmreich explores a number of themes or issues, such as immigration, gentrification, ethnic identification, education and various community issues. He uses what he learns by walking the city's streets to illustrate his points, pointing out some interesting streets, buildings and individuals along the way. Overall, I'd say that the approach was a bit less successful than the neighborhood approach, and there is a fair amount of repetition, particularly in what I considered to be an unnecessary final chapter entitled "Conclusions." Still, New York City is endlessly fascinating and Helmreich provides a close-up look in the best way possible, by walking.

One of the strengths of the book was the emphasis on New York as a collection of neighborhoods. This isn't one of those books that pretends that New York is just Manhattan and that the outer boroughs are inconsequential backwaters. Helmreich dives deep into Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island and we meet the people who live there, many of them immigrants from all around the world. I lived in Queens for eleven years and his approach matches what I saw - that city residents identify with their neighborhood as much as they do with the city. No one ever says that he or she lives in New York City or Queens. They are from Jamaica or Ozone Park or Brooklyn Heights or the Upper West Side. Helmreich shows how these neighborhoods change or don't change over time. He paints a picture of a busy, vibrant, lively city.

In recent years, two major factors, gentrification and immigration, have profoundly altered New York. Helmreich discusses these factors in great detail, pointing out the gains and losses by the city's residents. Overall, his tone is positive and he celebrates the richness of the city's culture attributable in large part to the immigrants who have come from all around the world to make New York their home.

There are a number of reviews on this site that are sharply critical of Helmreich for what is perceived to be stereotyping on his part, particularly of young people in minority neighborhoods. Those are probably fair criticisms, though I did not get the impression that Helmreich was some kind of bigot. His emphasis on the safety of various neighborhoods, whether they are changing, and what ethnic groups reside in them are similar to the preoccupations of the Queens residents I came to know while living there. New York, like most cities, is very segregated by race. The book would have been better if Helmreich had acknowledged and discussed that rather than downplaying it. I agree that some of his observations could have been described better and that he could have better avoided the impression that he considered his anecdotes to be a worthy substitute for actual science.

Still, I give credit to this man, who, yes, is a white man who lives in Great Neck, for undertaking this interesting project. He didn't describe the city from a helicopter or from the safety of a comfortable Manhattan apartment. He walked the streets, all of them, in every neighborhood. He entered the churches, went to the social clubs, explored the parks, and talked to the people, all of them, of every race and nationality. The result is an imperfect but enlightening view of New York, close up.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

William B. Helmreich spent four years walking up and down every block in all five boroughs of New York City, but that's not really what this book is about. It's not "Chapter One: What it's like to walk in the Bronx" and "Chapter Two: What it's like to walk in Staten Island" etc. That would be the easy, gimmicky way to write this book and it would make it like so many other "My Year of Doing This or That" books. But Helmreich is a sociology professor, and the purpose of his 6,000 miles of walking was to do serious research. As a result, the book is organized by theme, not geography, with sections on ethnicity, immigration, gentrification, and public spaces.

The book is also really about New York City's present, not its past. Despite the fact that Helmreich walked through many historic areas, the book doesn't even mention many of the touchstones that many books about New York include, such as the Five Points, Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall, or the draft riots.

As a native New Yorker, I did appreciate reading about many of the neighborhoods that I know of either by name or by having visited them, but New York really just serves as a laboratory and much of what Helmreich discovers could have been demonstrated in many other American cities and towns. For example, the roles that churches play in communities, or why people enjoy bingo.

I read this book because I like reading about New York City. It's a subject I return to again and again. This wasn't typical of many of the books that I've read. It was interesting, but only to a point. I was interested to learn what kind of things that a sociologist thinks about, but I'm not sure that I find those things especially interesting themselves.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 1 out of 5]

I typically do not rate books that I don’t finish, unless there’s a specific reason I do not finish aside from being bored; what’s boring to me might be really interesting to someone.

But holy racism, Batman!

The introduction alone made me cringe but I thought, surely I am imagining things. The author lives in New York City and is writing about one of the greatest cities in the entire world. He is writing about a place I have dreamed of living since I was a child, a city I love so deeply in my bones even though I have not been there yet. And what better way for me to continue to get to know the city than by reading a book by someone who has walked every street there?

But stereotypes abound, as do obvious references to other and the otherization of whole groups of people. Lots of talk about ghettos and a deep undercurrent of patting himself on the back for being brave in dangerous neighborhoods. There is no doubt that there are very dangerous neighborhoods in New York City, just as there are in every city around the world. But talking about an incident where a black couple is walking ahead of you and you accidentally kicked a bottle so they turned around and stared at you… I’m pretty sure that regardless of color, if someone hears a startling noise behind them they are going to turn around.

I made it two chapters and as much as it pains me, I cannot in good conscience finish this book. It honestly became uncomfortable. Like, come on my dude, you live in the greatest, most diverse city in the world, and you still have this outlook and attitude? No thanks.

[Wade Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me start by stating that I enjoyed the book, even though I gave it 3 stars. The reason for the rating really has more to do with the fact that this is not a book about walking the city of New York. It is a sociology book. It becomes apparent pretty quickly, but is not when you read the promotional excerpts and the back cover. In fact, the back cover highlights an award it received from the Guides Association of New York. But this is definitely not a guide book.

For what it is, the book does a good job of reviewing a number of factors that shape and will shape the city. It discusses the interaction of many groups, and addresses a number of problems that have plagued the city for a number of years and how the city is changing as a result of them, and their solutions.

The author's bias shows in many instances, but I will admit that his bias is probably more apparent to me because it is different from my own.

In the end, I had to rate it lower because I felt a bit deceived. Specifically a book I anticipated as being an antidotal story of the folks encountered on the author's walk, turned out to be a sociology study.

[Paul Clarke · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a great idea for a book. William Helmreich, a Professor in the Department of Sociology at City College, set out on an exploratory mission to walk every block in New York City, all five boroughs, covering 6,000 miles. An academic who has hooked on to a funky mission should have been a potent combination. So what went wrong here? First, the academic dominates the quirky fun potential of the book. We get reams of Sociological data about neighborhoods, and the people who inhabit them, which are interesting at times, but it doesn't guide the book toward a fun sense of discovery which is what I wanted to experience when Helmreich's boots are on the ground in the city blocks. Helmreich takes us further from the streets by interviewing every mayor from Dinkins to Bloomberg which gives the book a Public Affairs feel, and drains away the neighborhood spice. I also couldn't help but feel towards the end of the book that New York City was too wide a scope. Maybe a more concentrated book on one of the boroughs would have allowed for deeper human contact where the character move to the foreground and the academic component plays a valuable supporting role.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This comprehensive account of the city of New York is part memoir, part travel guide and part history. Helmreich used his life experiences literally walking the streets to speak with people and account for the complex set of stories and issues that exist within the largest city in the US. He accounts for the lives and struggles of those throughout all of the 5 boroughs, neither favoring or condemning one over the other. There is extensive emphasis on the various nationalities and ethnic groups, how they exist in New York, how they adapt and interact, and the challenges of the current political system (well current for this book, since it was published in the early 2010s). There is a lot packed into this work, and while it can't account for everything, there is much to gleam.

This work would probably resonate more with those who live in the city or want to study it. For those who don't care for New York, it will probably not change your perception of the city. Worth a read, but not sure it is worth a purchase.

[Garret Monahan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book in The Strand in NYC a few years back, had high hopes for it as the title and the premise of the book caught my eye.

However it has turned into a very disappointing read. While I admire the author for pounding the pavement of every bit of the city, the book reads like an academic paper/report a lot of the time, laying out various theories which don't tie in with the actual premise of the book for me.

I wanted to read about his interactions with New Yorkers of every type but this is severely lacking overall. Instead it reads like a civics/sociology lecture a lot of the time. The chapter on gentrification is particularly painful, it treats the reader like they are a first year college student who had never come across the term before.

In summary, avoid this one. The premise was good, the delivery is just so poor.

[Carolyn Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and really enjoyed reading the author's conversations with New Yorkers from all walks of life and his descriptions of the neighbourhoods that he explored on foot. Considering that he walked every street in the city, however, I expected his conclusions to be more detailed than "New Yorkers are friendly and helpful" and "gentrification is complicated," circumstances which can be observed by tourists who spend time in just a small number of neighbourhoods in the city over the course of a week. Some of his questions also seemed a little patronizing and it's clear that he has some biases of his own regarding some of the neighbourhoods that he visited and the people who live there. A really interesting book that will hopefully prompt more analysis of New York city and its residents.