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

From 2008 to 2012, City College of New York sociologist Helmreich systematically walked almost every street in the city, including those in the four outer boroughs—the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Helmreich (What Was I Thinking?) traverses the wide world located in a city whose population appears to come from every nation on the planet. His gaze is wide—sometimes “doing ethnography,” sometimes taking a nostalgic look at places he lived—and he engages with issues such as immigration, gentrification, and ethnic identity. The result comes close to providing an “everything you wanted to know, but didn’t know who to ask,” as the author visits parks, projects, schools, restaurants, and stores, observing the city’s active life (parades, street musicians, chess players) and still life (shop signs, street art, community gardens, building facades). Along the way, Helmreich chats with sundry people as well as the city’s last four mayors. Rigorous scholarly and journalistic research underpins his work. Though the narrative meanders, this is appropriate in a book that takes readers through the “balkanized collection of towns” that constitute New York City. The book’s maps (one of the entire city, and one for each borough) and a useful neighborhood glossary make the journey yet more vivid. 30 halftones, 6 maps. (Nov.)