East Side Earp

Most of his fellow New Yorkers com plain about crime. Charlie DiMaggio, 62, does something about it. Owner of a closet-sized grocery store ,on Lexington Avenue just south of Spanish Harlem, DiMaggio has been the victim of 26 holdups in 20 years. He has thwarted the bandits 16 times, shot four robbers, and helped arrest twelve others. And that, as Cousin Joe, the erstwhile Yankee Clipper would agree, is pretty good clipping. Last week three armed Negroes walked into the store for Holdup No. 26. Shoving Charlie into the wash room, they scooped $300 from the cash register and fled. But Charlie, who keeps a World War II 7.35-cal. Italian army rifle hidden in the washroom, came out firing. The rifle jammed after one shot, but the bullet killed one ban dit, tore through his body and critically wounded another. The third got away -- with DiMaggio's money. The papers all ran big stories on the East Side Earp, as one reporter called him, but Charlie was fed up with public ity. "Patting you on the back," snapped Charlie, "doesn't put butter on my ta ble. It doesn't feed the family." And nothing seems to keep bandits out of his shop. The only way to do that, Charlie figures, is to get into some safer business -- like police work.

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