Blog

New York City Police Museum

Jul 11, 2017 10:32 am

Rome was­n’t built in a day. Look behind any famous orga­ni­za­tion and you will like­ly find indi­vid­u­als that gave years of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion that went into cre­at­ing a rep­u­ta­tion for great­ness. Great­ness is a sta­tus that can­not be achieved imme­di­ate­ly. Rather, great­ness is attained over the course of gen­er­a­tions through the sac­ri­fice, dig­ni­ty, hon­or, and brav­ery of indi­vid­u­als. Embody­ing the afore­men­tioned ideals, the NYPD is the guardian of New York City. Incor­po­rat­ed in 1998, the New York City Police Muse­um is ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing the lega­cy of the NYPD and the men and women who serve as the City’s finest. From 10 AM‑5 PM dai­ly until Octo­ber 5^th the New York City Police Muse­um is spon­sor­ing sev­er­al exhibits at Gov­er­nors Island.

Links to the Past explores the his­to­ry of polic­ing trac­ing back to Johann Lam­po patrolling the Dutch set­tled New Ams­ter­dam. Lam­po estab­lished a prece­dent of main­tain­ing the peace that was fol­lowed in 1658 by an eight man watch. The watch, the nation’s First Raid Police Force, was respon­si­ble for keep­ing order in a rapid­ly grow­ing city. 

Women in Polic­ing cel­e­brates the con­tri­bu­tions of women to the NYPD. This exhib­it exam­ines the role of women as pio­neers in New York’s law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty. Coin­cid­ing with their accep­tance in the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty was a change in women’s stan­dard uni­form. Pre­vi­ous­ly, ​“police­women” were defined by their out­fit which con­sist­ed of a skirt, high heels, and a gun stowed in a hand­bag. This uni­form was more a prod­uct of the stereo­typ­i­cal garb that women were expect­ed to wear rather than what made sense to wear as a police offi­cer. Today, offi­cers in the NYPD wear a gen­der neu­tral uni­form. Per­haps unrec­og­nized by cit­i­zens, this change in uni­form speaks vol­umes about the enor­mous progress made in the law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ty. Rather than being judged by gen­der, offi­cers are now viewed by their mer­it and their strength of character.

The most poignant of all the exhibits, ⁹⁄₁₁: A Uni­form Response is a memo­r­i­al to an event that every New York­er will asso­ciate with this City’s courage and abil­i­ty to fight back and recov­er from a dis­as­trous day. While trag­ic, this event hon­ors the hero­ism of the first respon­ders – fire­fight­ers, police offi­cers, med­ical per­son­nel, and vol­un­teers, who in New York’s dark­est hour, showed that the courage and deter­mi­na­tion of this City’s uni­formed forces and peo­ple could not be extinguished.