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Title: NYPD: A City and Its Police by James Lardner, Thomas Reppetto ISBN: 0-8050-6737-X Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.42 (12 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: You REALLY Can't Judge a Book by It's Cover
Comment: 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.
Rating: 3
Summary: Needed Inspiration
Comment: 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
Rating: 1
Summary: WHY?
Comment: 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 its' 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. ...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?
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Title: NYPD: Stories of Survival from the World's Toughest Beat by Clint Willis ISBN: 1560254122 Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: NYPD (American Icon Close-Up Guides) by Andrew Cocker ISBN: 9622176585 Publisher: Odyssey Publications, Ltd. Pub. Date: December, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: My Life in the NYPD: Jimmy the Wags by James J. Wagner, James Wagner, Patrick Picciarelli ISBN: 0451410246 Publisher: Onyx Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: My Father's Gun: One Family, Three Badges, One Hundred Years in the Nypd by Brian McDonald ISBN: 0452279240 Publisher: Plume Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: 23rd Precinct: The Job by Arlene Schulman ISBN: 156947298X Publisher: Soho Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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