Teacher from Bensonhurst sets goal to walk every street in Brooklyn

Christopher Burke wants to explore every unique spot of the borough

Walking with a purpose.

Bensonhurst resident and teacher Christopher Burke has walked around Brooklyn so much, he decided to make it a mission to walk every block in the entire borough.

His journey began in 2019, but his goal started quite differently. He just wanted to break out of his typical walking routine, which consisted of the same handful of blocks in Bensonhurst.

“I decided to start walking up and down the numbered streets from Bensonhurst to Bay Ridge,” Burke, 60, said. “I didn’t think it would grow much beyond that. I created my map in May 2019 to keep track of where I’d walked already, not counting any place where I’d walked before that.”

In one example, he walked a bit in East New York because he worked in two different schools there. He walked to a school in Williamsburg, which opened the map for him and inspired him to try more areas.

“Coming off the Williamsburg Bridge on the M train, you can see the Williamsburg Bank Building, and it didn’t look that far away,” he said. “One afternoon after school, instead of taking trains back to Manhattan to come back to Brooklyn, I tried walking to the Atlantic Ave/Barclays station. I made it in about 45 minutes. That basically opened the borough up north to south.”

The COVID-19 shutdown also allowed him more time to take longer walks, opening his ambitious goal.

With the help of an app called Map My Walk and Microsoft Paint, Burke records which streets he’s reached.

For him, the best part of the walks includes “seeing tree-lined streets with slate slab sidewalks and old houses all over the place.

“I also like seeing the little parks and gardens and monuments that I never knew existed, many of them dating back to World War I,” he said.

Burke’s map of streets he’s walked. Photo courtesy of Christopher Burke

One of his earlier walks lasted nearly seven miles. He told himself he wasn’t going to do that again. 

However, he planned to walk Bedford Ave from Eastern Parkway to Kings Highway, where he could get a bus home on July 15.

“I’d already walked Bedford from Greenpoint to Eastern Parkway, although not all at once,” he said. “When I got to Kings Highway, it was still early and I wasn’t tired, so I kept going. I walked to Emmons Ave and then to the Q train on Sheepshead Bay Road. It was just about eight miles. I’m not likely to do that again anytime soon.”

Once friends and family heard of his goal, they were supportive and impressed.

“I’ve been posting updates on social media every three months or so,” he said. “This last time, my post was seen by a reporter from News 12 who wanted to do a story. I thought it’d be fun (if he could keep up). My kids saw the story and were like, ‘Oh, wow,’ and ‘way to go.’ I think they were suitably impressed and happy for me.”

Burke, who has lived in Bensonhurst for 36 years, says he has been walking all his life. His family didn’t have a car when he was a kid, which caused him to take more strolls. He’s also marched in the St. Patrick’s Day parade around 20 times.

In the summer, he wakes up early, so he’s outside before it’s too hot. 
“I used to pick a spot close to home, walk a few miles, and return,” Burke said. “I try to map something out in advance, so I don’t miss anything, like those little courts in between blocks. “

During the school year, he will try to get a walk in on the way home. That usually means he takes a train somewhere, walks, and then catches another train or a bus home.

“It’s great when I can just walk one street end-to-end, but some neighborhoods have short streets, and sometimes the blocks shift or are obstructed,” he said.

Of all the neighborhoods he’s walked through, his favorite was Park Slope. 
“That’s where my walking began as a kid when my father would walk my brother and me from Eighth Street and Third Avenue up the hill to Prospect Park, across the park, and down the hill to the zoo,” Burke said. “Walking Park Slope this time required a lot of zigzagging up between avenues because I didn’t want to walk up that slope so many times now.”

As for neighborhoods he still wants to reach, Burke is still working his way east.

“I have the center of the map, leading into East Flatbush,” he said. “I’ve barely touched Brownsville, East New York, Canarsie, and Cypress Hills. When I started this, Greenpoint and Cypress Hills weren’t even on my map because I never expected that I’d get this far.”

Still, he looks forward to the challenge.

“I wouldn’t call this a ‘mission,’ but more like a goal,” he said. “People have encouraged me to keep going, and I will as long as I’m still physically capable, and as long as it’s safe.”

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