Hannah Kliger joined the CBS News New York team as a reporter in May 2022, focusing her coverage in Brooklyn. A native New Yorker, Hannah has received several awards for her investigative journalism about problems plaguing Brooklynites, from hate crimes to housing rental scams.
Public school math teacher Christopher Burke has a unique goal: to walk every single block of Brooklyn.
Along the way, he's uncovering hidden pieces of the borough's history.
"I was a sub, so I was working at different schools. So I started walking home from different schools and I started mapping it out," he recalled on a recent walk.
Burke, who grew up in Park Slope, began this ambitious journey in 2019 as a personal challenge and a way to connect more deeply with the place he calls home.
"There are a lot of memorials all over Brooklyn that I never knew about," he told CBS News New York's Hannah Kliger.
Meticulously tracking his progress on his phone, Burke estimates he's covered almost the entire western half of the borough and is more than halfway through.
He often posts updates on Instagram and Reddit, where reactions are mixed. Some offer encouragement, while others doubt his commitment.
"I get a lot of feedback, some of it positive, some of it, you know, jokes," Burke said.
Along his walks, Burke photographs traces of the past: old trolley tracks, memorable statues, and historic architecture.
"A lot of things are changing, you know. I've been to Coney Island recently. It's all construction," he said.
But some places stand out to him because of how much they've stayed the same.
"This is Ten Eyck Street," he said. "It's a Dutch name. It actually means 'of the Oak' and the Ten Eyck family actually came over to New Amsterdam in the 1630s. So almost 400 years ago, they were like one of the founding families of New York."
One recent discovery brought Burke to a monument in Williamsburg dedicated to a nearly forgotten piece of history.
"This monument was erected by the Lithuanians of Greater New York back in 1957," he said, pointing to the square at the intersection of Hewes Street and Union Avenue. "That one surprised me only because Lithuanians is not one of the ethnic groups I think of - I know we have all of them, it's just not one of the ones that pops out at you."
The monument honors pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas, who attempted a record-breaking transatlantic flight from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to Lithuania in 1933 before tragically crashing to their death.
"There are several monuments like this all over the United States of America, dedicated to them," said Augustinas Zemaitis, a Lithuanian researcher and author of a book documenting Lithuanian heritage sites in the U.S.
His work is an effort to preserve and share this history.
"Indeed, Williamsburg was once the center of that community and many Lithuanians immigrated very long ago, late 19th century and the early 20th century," Zemaitis said.
For Burke, these discoveries are what his project is really about.
"It's a goal. It's not a mission," he said, laughing. "If I do it, great. If I don't, I'm getting a lot of exercise and I'm seeing a lot of Brooklyn."
Burke says it's not just about mapping the borough but about truly seeing it, one block at a time.