Session: 123456789101112131415161718         Page 237238239240241242243244245246247248249249a250251252253254255256257258259260261262263 of 617

'60s, two patrolmen, whose beat MacDougal Street was, were discharged, brought up on charges for taking graft from coffeee house entrepreneurs. What was interesting was that the MacDougal Street community, which again is basically Italian, first angry that any of these things are taking place, then very quickly rallied to the support of these patrolmen and demanded that they be reinstated. I never understood that myself, but I'm not sure that they were successful, although they may have been in reinstating one of them. “He's a good guy. Keeps the neighborhood quiet.” (laughs)

Do you recall that along the time of this meat heist was crime increasing in the Village, both burglaries and muggings as well?

Oh, I guess like any other place. I think the Village probably has the least amount of crime simply because there are so many people out on the street. Crime does not flourish when you have crowds. The most dangerous places in the city -- and I'm not now talking about the ghetto areas; those are the dangerous areas, but I'm talking about the middle class areas -- would be something like Park Avenue and 70th Street. That would be a very dangerous place at 11 o'clock at night. Why? Because there are no people there. Therefore, if you're alone on the street, you're exposed to criminal assault: whereas