The New York Nobody Knows

William Benno Helmreich was a sociologist and scholar of Judaism. He was born on August 25, 1945 in Zurich, Switzerland. His parents emigrated to the United States in 1945 and settled on the Upper West side of Manhattan. He attended Yeshiva University and did his graduate work at Washington University in St. Louis. He taught and became a professor at City University and the City University of New York's Graduate Center. He went on to serve as the longtime chairman of sociology at City College.

He wrote or edited 18 books. His first book was, The Black Crusaders: A Case Study of a Black Militant Organization. It was based on the study he did for his dissertation. He wrote a memoir, Wake Up, Wake Up to Do the Work of the Creator. Others works on Jewish life and education included, The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Judaism, The Enduring Community: The Jews of Newark and MetroWest, The World of the Yeshiva: An Intimate Portrait of Orthodox Jewry, and Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America.

He walked every block in New York City, all 6,163 miles. It began as something he did, as a child, with his father. These walks were the inspiration for several of his books, The New York Nobody Knows: Walking 6,000 Miles in the City, The Manhattan Nobody Knows: An Urban Walking Guide, and several other walking guides covering Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens.

He died on March 28, 2020 at the age of 74, from the coronavirus.

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