Books 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 "e;Last Stop."e; They would pick a subway line, ride it to its final destination, and explore the neighborhood. Decades later, his love for exploring the city is 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.

A one-of-a-kind walking guide to Brooklyn, from the man who has walked every block in New York CityBill Helmreich walked every block of New York City-6,000 miles in all-to write the award-winning The New York Nobody Knows. Now he has re-walked Brooklyn-some 816 miles-to write this one-of-a-kind walking guide to the city's hottest borough. Drawing on hundreds of conversations he had with residents during his block-by-block journeys, The Brooklyn Nobody Knows captures the heart and soul of a diverse, booming, and constantly changing borough that defines cool around the world. The guide covers every one of Brooklyn's forty-four neighborhoods, from Greenpoint to Coney Island, providing a colorful portrait of each section's most interesting, unusual, and unknown people, places, and things. Along the way you will learn about a Greenpoint park devoted to plants and trees that produce materials used in industry; a hornsmith who practices his craft in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens; a collection of 1,140 stuffed animals hanging from a tree in Bergen Beach; a five-story Brownsville mural that depicts Zionist leader Theodor Herzl-and that was the brainchild of black teenagers; Brooklyn's most private-yet public-beach in Manhattan Beach; and much, much more. An unforgettably vivid chronicle of today's Brooklyn, the book can also be enjoyed without ever leaving home-but it's almost guaranteed to inspire you to get out and explore one of the most fascinating urban areas anywhere.Covers every one of Brooklyn's 44 neighborhoods, providing a colorful portrait of their most interesting, unusual, and unknown people, places, and thingsEach neighborhood section features a brief overview and history; a detailed, user-friendly map keyed to the text; and a lively guided walking tourDraws on the author's 816-mile walk through every Brooklyn neighborhoodIncludes insights from conversations with hundreds of residents

In Newark all the representative stages of modern Jewish experience were enacted, from immigration and acculturation to upward mobility and community building. This social history of the Jewish presence in Newark examines what we may conclude about social assimilation, conflict and change.

Against All Odds is the first comprehensive look at the 140,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors who came to America and the lives they have made here. William Helmreich writes of their experiences beginning with their first arrival in the United States: the mixed reactions they encountered from American Jews who were not always eager to receive them; their choices about where to live in America; and their efforts in finding marriage partners with whom they felt most comfortable-most often other survivors.In preparation, Helmreich spent more than six years traveling the United States, listening to the personal stories of hundreds of survivors, and examining more than 15,000 pages of data as well as new material from archives that have never before been available to create this remarkable, groundbreaking work. What emerges is a picture that is sharply different from the stereotypical image of survivors as people who are chronically depressed, anxious, and fearful.This intimate, enlightening work explores questions about prevailing over hardship and adversity: how people who have gone through such experiences pick up the threads of their lives; where they obtain the strength and spirit to go on; and, finally, what lessdns the rest of us can learn about overcoming tragedy.