For decades the 1964 murder of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese was taught as proof of urban apathy: 38 neighbors supposedly watched and did nothing. This episode rescues the real person from the parable. Born in Brooklyn in 1935, Kitty refused to follow her family to Connecticut, had an early marriage annulled because she was a lesbian, worked as a bartender, was fined for running a bookmaking operation, and by 1964 was managing a Queens bar and saving to open an Italian restaurant with her partner Mary Ann Zielonko.

We reconstruct the night of March 13, 1964 from the record: Winston Moseley following her red Fiat, the first attack interrupted when neighbor Robert Mozer shouted from his window, the second attack in a hidden rear vestibule, and Sophia Farrar holding her friend until the ambulance arrived. Then we trace how a miscounted police int ...