THE BENEFITS OF STARTING A NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH.

Here are a couple of examples, from the disastrous 1977 New York Blackout:

There’s a police precinct, the 83rd precinct, that is literally half a block away from Broadway, right at the core of it, very close to where Gates and Broadway intersect, and yet there really wasn’t a cop to be seen. There was that whole issue that the word went out to just go to where you live.

I don’t know what police coverage might have done — it might have just inflamed the situation. But the fact of the matter was it was total chaos. . . .

I lived on Decatur and Knickerbocker. We had a good block association, so the first thing that happened was the men on the block blocked the street off with their cars and stood on the corners to protect the stores. I know quite a few of them were armed. No incidents happened on our block, although Broadway was a disaster.

Likewise: “The blocks that got themselves organized, those were the blocks that survived, as opposed to being burned down. . . . I was ten years old, and I remember my father was the only smart one that put his car on the sidewalk and put on his headlights. Then everyone went into formation, and that’s how they protected our block.”