![]() She was, again, well-liked, consistent, and dedicated, often working double shifts. Her work ethic from her school days carried over into her professional life. Eventually, she became a manager at Ev’s 11th Hour, a bar in Hollis, Queens. She held a number of different jobs: secretary, waitress, hostess, and barmaid. But not every Genovese made the move.īecause she loved the city, Kitty stayed behind in New York City. The shock of the murder spurred the family to move out of the city to the suburbs of New Canaan, Connecticut. Right after her graduation, a terrible omen occurred. She graduated from Prospect Heights High School, an all-girls school, in 1953 with a future ahead of her. Her favorite subjects were English and music. She demonstrated a joyous love for life.Īs a student, Genovese was a well-liked, bright student with a winning sense of humor (she was voted “Class Cut-Up” her senior year). Throughout her childhood, Kitty was considered upbeat. The oldest of five children, the large Genovese family lived in a four-family row house in an Irish and Italian working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn. Her mother was a homemaker, while her father was a business manager. Kitty Genovese was born Catherine Susan Genovese on July 7, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York to Rachel and Vincent Genovese. The Life of Kitty Genovese Kitty Genovese. Please be advised: the nature of this woefully true account is fairly graphic and deals with the sensitive and disturbing subject matter, including rape and murder. Was this young woman truly sabotaged by apathetic witnesses, or was this a media falsehood? Her killing has been considered a key example of the Bystander Effect taken to a horrible extreme. The murder of Kitty Genovese was one of the most notorious crimes in New York City history, partly because of the nature of the media coverage surrounding her death. The day is the anniversary of at least two historically, culturally notable deaths: Sam Patch, as discussed in our last post, and Kitty Genovese. His heartbreaking account of what really happened on the night Genovese died is the most accurate and chilling to date.Friday the 13th perhaps carries more weight in New York than in most places. ![]() Kitty Genovese evokes the Village’s gay and lesbian underground with deep feeling and colorful detail.Ĭook also reconstructs the crime itself, tracing the movements of Genovese’s killer, Winston Moseley, whose disturbing trial testimony made him a terrifying figure to police and citizens alike, especially after his escape from Attica State Prison.ĭrawing on a trove of long-lost documents, plus new interviews with her lover and other key figures, Cook explores the enduring legacy of the case. ![]() Downtown, Greenwich Village teemed with beatniks, folkies, and so-called misfits like Kitty and her lover. She was a vibrant young woman-unbeknownst to most, a lesbian-a bartender working (and dancing) her way through the colorful, fast-changing New York of the ’60s, a cultural kaleidoscope marred by the Kennedy assassination, the Cold War, and race riots. Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of her murder, Cook presents the real Kitty Genovese. The truth is far more compelling-and so is the victim. But as award-winning author Kevin Cook reveals, the Genovese story is just that, a story. That’s the narrative told by the Times, movies, TV programs, and countless psychology textbooks. A young woman is stabbed to death on her front stoop-a murder the New York Times called “a frozen moment of dramatic, disturbing social change.” The victim, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, became an urban martyr, butchered by a sociopathic killer in plain sight of thirty-eight neighbors who “didn’t want to get involved.” Her sensational case provoked an anxious outcry and launched a sociological theory known as the “Bystander Effect.”
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