After the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York City was given a reputation as a callous city where people more or less looked out for themselves.
Six decades later, residents of the city aren’t doing much to dispel the notion that they live in one of the most selfish places on the planet.
According to The New York Post, a 72-year-old man was found dead in a Manhattan courtyard on Sunday, and it is believed he was there for 25 hours before anyone noticed.
How a man can lay dead for so long in a borough with roughly 22,124 people per square mile is a mystery.
In any event, the Post reported a man named Patrick Mullins was found in the West Village neighborhood at around 5:40 p.m. on Sunday.
According to the report, police believe he jumped from his building the afternoon before. He had lived in his building for decades.
“It’s a shame he was out there like that. I think it’s a terrible way for somebody to die. I hope that wherever he is, he’s found peace and solace,” one of Mullins’ neighbors named Cheryl Bulbach told the newspaper.
Bulbach partially blamed the slow response to Mullins’ death on her building’s management.
“If we had a super, perhaps Patrick could have been found sooner,” she said. “He certainly wouldn’t have lain there dead in the courtyard.”
Do you think anyone noticed this body and ignored it?
Yes: 97% (265 Votes)
No: 3% (9 Votes)
A representative for the medical examiner referred to Mullins as a “decedent” and reacted to the late discovery of his remains as if it was something routine.
“It can happen that decedents pass away some time before they are found and pronounced dead,” Julie Bolcer said. “The date of death for purposes of record keeping is the date when found.”
The medical examiner ruled Mullins died from “blunt force” trauma.
Perhaps the only thing more tragic than the suspected suicide of a 72-year-old man is that no one noticed. No one reported him missing.
No one stumbled across or otherwise saw his body and made a phone call to police.
For 25 hours, a man who had lived an entire life that spanned seven decades lay dead like trash.
Back in 1964, it was widely reported that a young woman named Kitty Genovese approached her New York City apartment early one morning after a late work shift.
She was stabbed, and around three dozen people reportedly heard her screams for help. No one intervened, except a neighbor who merely yelled out the window. No one phoned the police.
Her attacker returned minutes later — after realizing no one was coming to help her — and then raped and ultimately murdered her, the story goes.
A headline from The New York Times from March 27, 1964, read “37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call The Police.”
Some of the paper’s reporting was later challenged — which is no real surprise when it comes to the Times as it relates to fact and fiction.
But New York, New York, was nonetheless given a reputation as a place where people simply didn’t care about one another.
However fair or unfair that reputation was and might be, those living in the West Village from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon failed to notice one of their own was dead in a courtyard in the most densely populated area of the country.
Perhaps this time everyone was too busy looking at their phones.
