Kensington

Our last movie-focused walk is also our first in our home stretch of special walks covering multiple boroughs at a time. Here we draw inspiration from the 2002 Spike Lee film "25th Hour" and the Edward Norton monologue contained within called "F*ck New York." In it, Norton's character Montgomery Brogan rails against the people and neighborhoods that make this city what it is. We'll visit as much as we can of the soliloquy, from Chelsea to Wall Street, Bensonhurst, Alphabet City and everything in between.

Our final music-centric walk visits the high schools of Brooklyn's most famous female musicians. From Lena Horne to Barbra Streisand, Carole King to Lil' Kim, we see the institutions that made them - and sometimes made them leave.

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.

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.

The Battle of Brooklyn was the largest conflict of the Revolutionary War in terms of troop deployment, taking place over three days in August of 1776. This week we'll visit all the key locations, including the British landing near Fort Hamilton, Greenwood Cemetery, Prospect Park, Fort Greene, and Fulton Ferry where the Americans made their last gasp retreat.

This week takes us further still into the south of Brooklyn, doing a sweep of Coney Island, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach. Our return path skirts Sheepshead Bay, rolls straight through Homecrest and Midwood, goes up the Kings Highway and heads home.

Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted literally shaped the landscape of New York, with an influence that touches millions of lives every day. On this walk we take a day to visit experience nearly all of their local contributions, starting at Morningside Park and hanging a right to take in Riverside. Cutting through the lower half of Central Park, we take the Manhattan Bridge over to Fort Greene Park and head for a ramble through Prospect Park. We come out the other side to take a long stroll down the Olmstead designed Ocean Parkway, then up the Prospect Park again before concluding the day on another Olmstead route, Eastern Parkway. Excluded in this walk due to distance is the previously visited Forest Park in Queens.