A safer city when cops walked the beat

While World War II raged, taking the lives of more than 200 Stamford men, the city remained a tranquil town of about 50,000 residents, many of whom worked in the dozen or so factories that were producing much-needed materials for U.S forces abroad and at sea.

The most profound sign of the war were the volunteer air-spotters posted atop the eight-story Gurley building at Atlantic and Main streets, then the tallest structure in town; the six-story Stamford Gas & Electric building on lower Atlantic Street and on the roof of Stamford High School, scanning the skies for German planes which never did attack the U.S. mainland. Other signs and sounds included citywide blackouts and ear-piercing practice air-raid sirens and the sight of Stamford GIs home on leave, some of whom also danced to the music of the Frank Daley Orchestra at Laddin’s Terrace restaurant and nightclub on the Post Road across from the American Cyanamid Company which Daley owned. The crime rate was low and the sound of gunfire was virtually nonexistent.

Today, in relative peacetime, Stamford, now a city of around 130,000, is a far more dangerous place, especially in the West Side where shootings have occurred in broad daylight and COVID-19 cases have surged. In Stamford, a recent daytime shooting on West Broad Street a few blocks east of Stamford Hospital seriously wounded a motorist shortly after he left work at the hospital. That hit home for me, especially during the Christmas season, since while working as a temporary mailman while in college West Broad Street was part of my route in what was then a predominantly Italian neighborhood, where, as in most Stamford neighborhoods, there was very little crime.

Also resonating was the recent shooting death at Henry and Cedar Streets in front of the old Yale & Towne office entrance in the South End, where friends of mine and I would get together almost every summer evening before playing softball on the southern end of Canal Street (there were a lot fewer cars there after most factories emptied after 5 p.m. in those days) and the then-popular game of ring-alevio, which we played until our parents, mostly Polish, called us home when it got dark.

All that is not to say the Stamford of the 1940s and 1950s was a nirvana. For example, while the city was not legally segregated, it was segegated de facto with many Black residents clustered on then South Pacific Street and the northwestern part of lower Broad Street. Moreover, there were few Black teachers, doctors, dentists, police officers, firefighters and postal workers. Further, not many people in the South End and West Side had cars, and thus had to rely on buses or walk or, if you were a kid, ride a bike to games, no matter how far off they were.

It was also a time when police officers were far more visible, mainly because many were foot patrolmen who walked “beats” in neighborhoods. More than 20 years ago, some neighborhood foot patrols were reinstated and, while on assignment for The New York Times, Iwalked with then officer Steve Shay along his beat on the West Side.

The gregarious Shay seemed to know everyone, including most storekeepers, some of whom would tell him about troublemakers they had to deal with. Chances are Shay knew who they were and remonstrated with them if and when he ran into them. Storekeepers and other West Siders I talked with said they were convinced Shay, on his own, helped keep the crime rate down in the neighborhood, which by then had become a mix of primarily Italians, African-Americans and Hispanics.

Indicative of their appreciation of Shay’s efforts, when he was about to be transferred, a group of West Siders gave him a block party sendoff that drew scores of residents and shopkeepers. After being disbanded a few years later, beat cops were later reinstated by then Chief (one of the best the city has had) G. Patrick Tully who said at the time “In community policing, residents get to know police officers as people who truly care about them and not as nameless and faceless individuals who occasionally drive by in radio cars. Such a relationship, wherein the officers form a partnership with the community, is bound to foster truth on both sides.”

Later, the police department instituted a bicycle patrol and a park-and-walk program where officers in radio cars parked for a while and walked in high-crime neighborhoods. Just maybe the Stamford Police Department, which rarely puts officers on foot patrol anymore, might try it again in some neighborhoods. Like Shay, they might be able to find out who some of the bad guys are before they cause trouble.

It’s a different Stamford, but it might just work again downtown and in some neighborhoods.