Customer Reviews

NYPD: A City and Its Police

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Cops are cops the world over, but New York's complex and turbulent development has given a unique shape to the force that the city created one hundred and fifty-five years ago to control its own manifold aggressions. It is the feat of James Lardner and Thomas Reppetto to have surveyed the multitude of trends and personalities operating inside this much-examined yet oddly cloistered institution, and to have synthesized them into a constantly engaging narrative. Here we find innovators such as Thomas Byrnes, the Gashouse kid and Civil War veteran who, as a precinct captain, virtually invented modern American detective methods; reformers like Teddy Roosevelt, who tramped the streets at night in search of derelict patrolmen; forgotten heroes like Joe Petrosino, assassinated on a Mission Impossible in Sicily; rogues like Inspector Alexander "Clubber" Williams, who, when queried about a personal fortune that included a Connecticut estate and a steam-powered yacht, claimed to have made a lucky killing in Japanese real estate (this being 1894); and sundry exemplars of the rank and file, with their special talents (spotting from his gait alone a man wearing a gun), their folk wisdom (to stay alert, keep the windows of the squad car open in any weather), and their lore and lingo (dido means a reprimand; Goatsville is an outlying, graftless precinct). Into the mix has also gone a high incidence of uninspiring commissioners, a chronic strain of corruption that gets rediscovered and prosecuted roughly every two decades, and a long record of racism (in 1916 there were just fifteen blacks on the force; Chicago, then half the size of New York, had one hundred and thirty-one blacks in its department). A huge amount of fascinating history has been skillfully packed into a few more than three hundred fast-flowing pages.

By reading the title and information on the dust jacket, I believed this was a history of the New York Police Dept. And, to an extent, it was.

If you can believe that prehaps 3 dozen men founded, organized, operated and developed the policies of the Department over the last 155 years, and that they were crooked, inept, stupid,and brutal, then you will find this to be a good read.

What I found was the stories of about 3 dozen men who had the qualities I mentioned above and whose exploits were detailed at length. And, no matter how these people behaved, the authors had to find something wrong with it. In fact, in several places they seem to contradict themselves as to what should have been the appropriate handling of a situation. And, there really never is any thesis to the book or follow up as to what the authors believed happened. It seems more to be a detailing of fact; little beyond that.

This would be a good book if it were titled, "NYPD: A History of Graft, Corruption and Stupidity" and it was used as a text book for a class at John Jay College in that subject area, but it is a book that is far from a representative of the history of the men in blue in New York.

In addition to those faults, I found the book difficult to read. One moment they are following a chronilogical sequence, then they are following a different line. It made it tough to keep track of the people detailed.

If you want a good book about the New York Police Department history, find it elsewhere. If you are a historian and wish to add one small peice of the story to your collection then maybe this book would be a good buy.

I bought this book in a shop in the mall of the World Trade Center; four days later 23 NYPD officers died in and around the those towers. As I prepared to read this book, I grumbled, "There better be no cop-bashing in here." And at the first sign of negative criticism of the force, I put the book down and didn't start again until two years later. I'm glad I did: I might not have given it a fair reading or review back in 2001.

Having said that, Reppetto and Lardner have put together a decent history of the NYPD. And yet, I finished the book with an empty kind of feeling. Considering that Reppetto is a retired NYPD cop, I thought I'd get something deeper, more probing than this. For anyone familiar with New York history or the NYPD, there's nothing really new here. A lot of known ground is rehashed: the Police Riot of 1857, Teddy Roosevelt's reforms, the attempts to fight Organized Crime, and the lurid corruption scandals that seemed to recur with every new generation of cops. The cast of characters can be found in any book on the seamy side of New York City history: Alexander "Clubber" Williams, Detective Byrne, Lt. Becker, Serpico, etc. What I'm saying is that I had expected a book that would explain how the department evolved and detail its daily processes and procedures, and not a collection of anecdotes accumulated over 150 years of department history.

What is redeeming is the authors' willingness to admit to these episodes of graft and other crimes. Still, the point is clear that no matter how many corruption scandals have surfaced over the years, the ratio of honest cops compared to the dishonest ones is so disproportionate in favor of honest cops.

There are several sections that describe some of the lesser known heroes and heroics of individual police officers. These were enjoyable and, sometimes, inspiring. But nothing could be more inspiring than the sacrifices those 23 police officers made on September 11, 2001.

Rocco Dormarunno,
author of The Five Points

NYPD is a history of New York City and its police department. It does not relate the story of either very well. The specific weaknesses of NYPD are several: It's hard to follow. While presented in a decade by decade format, the chronology is still confusing. Accounts of various incidents end abruptly, or merely tail off to no conclusion. Characters appear, disappear and like magic appear once again. Too much attention is given to past riots and disorders. NYPD also concentrates far too many pages to corruption. This subject is way too old and common to rate the space the authors have devoted to it. Honest cops by comparison are downplayed. We are rarely placed in the street with the cops on the beat. The reader gets virtually no sense of tradition, honor, or bravery that many, if not all, policemen routinely display. Also conspicuous by it's absence is HUMOR! Cops must encounter howlingly funny situations all the time, yet the authors ignore this obvious subject. A final objection to the tale is the extreme tediousness of the portrayal of the department up until the great Depression years. The tone of NYPD improves after that but not enough to save itself. Non-NYC residents will receive no feel, no local flavor. It fails on that score too. The recommendation from this reviewer is to "search" elsewhere for superior political AND better police portrayals. Surely, amazon has them. It's depressing that a lifelong NYC native has to present such negative review. The answer to the question at the top is not why buy NYPD but why was it written in the first place?

It would appear that the two authors have some kind of axe to grind against the NYPD. If one is to believe this book, all New York City cops are corrupt, or inept, or just lucky bumblers who when they do solve a crime, do so by sheer luck. This is omissionist history at its worst. As an insider in the NYPD I feel I know what I am speaking about. These two authors seem to be the type of person who, once having been denied entrance to the police department, set about tearing it down. It is a one-sided look at the police department, with absolutely no in-depth look at how the "job" actually works. Don't waste your money on this tripe.

NYPD is great storytelling and a great read of the history of the
how the NYPD evolved from 1830 to the present. While the book
does spend more time recounting scandals and villains than heroes,the scandals do make entertaining reading. What makes
it great history is how the writers show how politics, economics,
events and men (both great and small) shaped and molded the profession. Despite its breezy, entertaining anecdotal style, I found the book had considerable insight into the events that shaped and molded the police department as it has evolved today. Unfortunately, given the size of the NYPD, and the times they lived in , there have been a history of headline scandals followed by "reforms", that leaves you with the feeling "the more things change the more they remain the same" . . . . I did not feel NYPD was negative about the department-I felt the focus of the book was to show the evolution of the profession- which like every other profession has its villains, heroes, smart guys and dopes, much like the politicians who ruled them and the people they served -- finally - to be fair to the writers, sometimes scandals are a helluva lot more entertaining, funny and complicated than everyday good works --- my only critique perhaps is that the book seems to rush through the events of the last 30 years--(but most of these events were more familiar to most readers anyway)

This book is an excellent review of the history of the NYPD for both amateur and professional historians. It is written in an easy readable style that provides "the facts" in a well-rounded social context. As a professional historian, having read many historical texts on a variety of subjects, I was very impressed with the depth of understanding exhibited by the authors of the social forces and issues surrounding the police throughout each period touched upon in the book.

I got this book for free from a friend, and as a former NYPD officer and current officer in Upstate New York, was looking forward it. However, the book is more about the history and development of New York City circa 1850-2000, with the NYPD stories ancillary to that. As a history buff, I can appreciate this, but was hoping to learn more about the department itself. It did have interesting war stories and biographies of famous NYPD officers, as well as engaging facts on the politics and demographics of the city. If you are looking for a "police book," I would say pass on this one, but if you want a book on NYC history with a focus on its police department, I'd say pick this one up.

A fascinating history of the NY police that shows that there's nothing really new under the sun. Heroes, scandals, police brutality, riots and murder have been with us since the beginning. But if you think you've heard it all before, there's a couple of stories here that will surprise you.

A remarkably complete and concise history of New York City and it's remarkable police department. It is full of facts that are facinating for police officers, police buffs, & interested citizens alike.