Brooklyn teacher is a 'New Yorker of the Year'

The New York Times named Lee Gabay a "New Yorker of the Year." It represents his extraordinary work as a teacher with students in very difficult situations.

Students say Gabay is one of those teachers you remember for the rest of your life. He teaches teachers English at Brooklyn Democracy Academy in the Brownsville Section of Brooklyn.

For most of his career, Gabay has worked with students who have been in juvenile detention centers, jail, in foster care or homeless. Most of the students at Brooklyn Democracy Academy have the same struggles. These are teenagers who wound up here because they couldn't make it in other schools.

Gabay has these students interested in books they never imagined reading, like "The Pearl" by Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck.