The City So Nice They Walked It Twice

A few years ago, William Helmreich, a sociology professor at CUNY, wrote a book called “The New York Nobody Knows.” Helmreich had spent four years walking every block in the five boroughs—that’s a hundred and twenty thousand blocks and six thousand miles. He had produced a street-level biography of the whole city. I read it and found it fascinating. Eventually, I met Helmreich, and we walked around the Bronx together. Three things were immediately clear: he loved New York, he loved people, and the people of New York loved him. On Charlotte Street, in the South Bronx, a man strolled up and said, “Hey, I saw you here two years ago!” They talked for twenty minutes, like old friends; when, in the middle of their conversation, the man had to run a brief errand, he asked Helmreich to babysit his young daughter.