An edition of No one helped (2015)

No one helped

Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the myth of urban apathy

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Last edited by MARC Bot
December 21, 2022 | History
An edition of No one helped (2015)

No one helped

Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the myth of urban apathy

  • 5 Want to read

In "No One Helped" Marcia M. Gallo examines one of America’s most infamous true-crime stories: the 1964 rape and murder of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese in a middle-class neighborhood of Queens, New York. Front-page reports in the New York Times incorrectly identified thirty-eight indifferent witnesses to the crime, fueling fears of apathy and urban decay. Genovese’s life, including her lesbian relationship, also was obscured in media accounts of the crime. Fifty years later, the story of Kitty Genovese continues to circulate in popular culture. Although it is now widely known that there were far fewer actual witnesses to the crime than was reported in 1964, the moral of the story continues to be urban apathy. "No One Helped" traces the Genovese story’s development and resilience while challenging the myth it created.

"No One Helped" places the conscious creation and promotion of the Genovese story within a changing urban environment. Gallo reviews New York’s shifting racial and economic demographics and explores post–World War II examinations of conscience regarding the horrors of Nazism. These were important factors in the uncritical acceptance of the story by most media, political leaders, and the public despite repeated protests from Genovese’s Kew Gardens neighbors at their inaccurate portrayal. The crime led to advances in criminal justice and psychology, such as the development of the 911 emergency system and numerous studies of bystander behaviors. Gallo emphasizes that the response to the crime also led to increased community organizing as well as feminist campaigns against sexual violence. Even though the particulars of the sad story of her death were distorted, Kitty Genovese left an enduring legacy of positive changes to the urban environment.

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
212

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: No One Helped
No One Helped: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy
2015, Cornell University Press
in English
Cover of: No one helped
No one helped: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the myth of urban apathy
2015, Cornell University Press
Paperback in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

Prologue: A New York story
Urban villages in the big city
Hidden in plain sight
Thirty-eight witnesses
The metropolitan brand of apathy
The city responds
Surviving new city streets
Challenging the story of urban apathy
Epilogue: Kitty, fifty years later.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Published in
Ithaca, London

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
364.152/3092
Library of Congress
HV6534.N5 G35 2015, HV6534.N5G35 2015

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Pagination
xxiii, 212 p. :
Number of pages
212

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL26845073M
ISBN 10
0801452783, 0801456649
ISBN 13
9780801456640, 9780801452789
LCCN
2014039464
OCLC/WorldCat
10135676, 892514462

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
December 21, 2022 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 8, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
February 19, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 23, 2021 Edited by Jenner Add subjects, description, edition info
April 11, 2019 Created by ImportBot Imported from Internet Archive item record