Bushwick

One calendar year, 255 marathons and these last five to go. The project culminates Sunday, June 20th with a day-long wedding march around Brooklyn and a ceremony at Marine Park. Note: The 5.5 miles missing from the marathon length will be made up in walking around the Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach region.

Our penultimate walk has the distinction of being the only one to touch all five boroughs. The same can be said of this week's focus: the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. This route visits memorial sites in all five boroughs - some grand and others understated. Note it is the only route to use transit during the course of the walk (the Staten Island ferry) though the walking distance of 26.2 miles is still maintained.

In 1790, 61% of all white Households in Kings County owned slaves, representing 30% of the borough's total population. This was enough to earn it the ignominious distinction of "the highest proportion of slaveholders and slaves in the North." Our walk this week covers the grounds of Canarsie and the Flatlands where many of these slaves resided, along with the courageous and vibrant abolitionist history of Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg and Weeksville. We'll also step into Manhattan to visit the African Burial Ground National Monument near City Hall.

Episode two of our movies of NY walks focuses on a single film - the 2001 Wes Anderson comedy The Royal Tenenbaums. Anderson's fanciful version of New York hops all over Manhattan, from Battery Park to the Church of the Intercession to the Waldorf Astoria New York.

Our second walk focusing on music in NYC takes a look at the history of Hip-Hop in Queens County. From Queensbridge to Corona, from Hollis to Jamaica, Queens native musicians have played a critical role in the development of the form. We'll visit the neighborhood homes of Nas, LL Cool J, Nicki Minaj, A Tribe Called Quest and Kool G Rap, just to name of few. (Note: .4 marathon mileage delta will be made up as we wander)

Our first walk in a series exploring NYC filming locations takes in a sampling of sites from three movies famous for their New York/Queens connections: Coming to America, Goodfellas and Men In Black. We'll visit sites still standing, sites since past and sites out of this world.

Our look at NYC cemeteries continues with arguably its most famous: the historic Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Our route accounts for a whopping five miles daily to explore the grounds and visit the most famous residents at rest there. In between, we'll dip down to the bottom of Dyker Heights and work our way up through Borough Park, Kensington and Flatbush.

Back in our home borough, we tackle the three iconic thoroughfares that define the flow of traffic between BK and Manhattan: the Williamsburg, Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. In between, we'll take leisurely tours of Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, and a host of lower Manhattan haunts.

Few major thoroughfares define its surroundings as strongly as the section of I-278 known as the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. This week we'll follow the entirety of its path, starting at the foot of the RFK bridge in Astoria and concluding at the base of the Verrazzano. Neighborhoods along the way include Woodside, Sunnyside, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights, Sunset Park, Bay Ridge and more.

Our walk this week traverses the many bridges that connect Manhattan to all parts east. Starting with the Ed Koch/Queensboro bridge, we snake through Randalls Island before systematically tackling the nine bridges that connect Upper Manhattan to the Bronx. Not included in this map due to route revision constraints are both the walk over the Third Avenue Bridge and the 2.5 miles from Henry Hudson Park to the train at 181st Street.

Part two of our Queens coastal conquering starts with a significant hike before we even hit water, crossing through Glendale, Rego Park and the middle of Flushing Meadows Park. We pick up the start of Flushing Bay and reconnect with the East River at College Point, following to Beechhurst and the base of the Throgs Neck Bridge. The return trip takes us through Murray Hill, Forrest Hills and Woodhaven on the way to the J train home.

This walk starts a two week quest to tackle the north shore of Queens. Crossing through Blissville, we border Newtown creek before meeting the East River and heading north through Hunters Point, Dutch Kills and Astoria. Taking a right at Ditmars Steinway, we hit the tip of Willets Point and head back down through the meat of the borough.

If the weather's warm, the shore is where we want to be. This week we look to cover as much BK shoreline in one day as possible. After a hike through inland North Brooklyn, we arrive at the tip of Greenpoint and work our way down the East River, passing all three bridges and crossing the Gowanus Canal. A walk down Second Avenue brings us to Shore Road and the Verrazzanno Bridge. We end the day at Brighton Beach and a long train ride home.

Beach days begin with trip down to the tip of Breezy Point and the southernmost tip of Brooklyn. We'll pass a couple of parks along the way, including Canarsie Park, Fort Tilden and Floyd Bennett Field. We'll walk the length of Rockaway beach and take a tour of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge before hopping on the Broad Channel A train for home.

This high-level sweep of North Brooklyn takes us around the edges of Bushwick, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and Red Hook. We do an about face in Sunset Park and head up 5th Avenue through Park Slope. After briefly touching the tip of Fort Greene, we meander through Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights before heading home.