The Last Word on Kitty Genovese and the Mafia Crime Family...
One night in 1990s Kew Gardens, Queens, we parked on a side street and headed towards the bar up the block on the brightly lit main street. At some point en route, we left the sidewalk and were walking through a parking lot, which at that hour of the night was nearly deserted, when Karen, my girlfriend at the time, told me, in her usual matter of fact tone, that "Kitty Genovese was murdered around here." This iconic photo is actually Kitty's 1961 mugshot. And that stopped me -- or rather, us -- in my tracks (we'd been holding hands at the moment). To this day, whenever I recall that night, I get the chills. That brief moment in my life, coupled with the facts of the murder as originally (and ultimately incorrectly) reported were ingrained in my memory. I can still visualize the parking lot's pinkish-colored night sky (the color owing to the gleam of the streetlights?), almost sense that foreboding, seemingly solidified silence, as if a herculean dome ...