Big Eye on the Great White Way

Clad in two sweaters, a woolen coat and a flamboyantly flowing scarf, Mrs. Mary Kearns was making her customary grand entrance on New York City's Great White Way. Dreamily murmuring about the Queen of England and other famous folks whom she had never known, she settled her diminutive form on one of the concrete flower boxes on an island in the middle of Times Square. Oblivious to the shouts and screeches of one of the world's busiest intersections, she did not notice the gang of young toughs approaching her. Then one of the gang shoved a hand into the old woman's pocket. As if from nowhere, a policeman ran up and collared the kid while his companions fled into the neon-drenched night.

The surprise rescue of Mrs. Kearns, a Times Square regular, was accomplished with the aid of a police device that some zealous civil libertarians call "Big Brother" and that Police Lieut. Ira Berg describes as the "good shepherd tending his sheep." It is a TV eye that relentlessly scans round the clock for any sign of crime. One camera sweeps the Times Square area; two other stationary cameras provide a picture of the south-side of 45th Street west of Broadway, which is a big street for theaters, and a fourth is aimed at Shubert Alley paralleling Broadway.

Housed in a blue and white trailer in the middle of Times Square, a patrolman keeps his eyes on four screens for the first flicker of something going wrong. He can phone a squad car that will appear on the scene in as little as 30 seconds, or he can rush out himself to nab a thug, as Patrolman Jim Ray did in the case of Mrs. Kearns. Says Lieut. Berg: "It is as if we provide a cop at every door where the camera goes."

Likely Prey. The cameras were put in last September because the Great White Way was in danger of becoming the great dark way. Legitimate theaters and respectable restaurants have been imperiled by an invasion of porno movie houses, peep shows, sleazy eateries and a grab bag of other dubious enterprises. Understandably, this kind of low-life smorgasbord attracts some of the strangest night creatures ever to adorn a modern city. They range from nattily dressed black pimps in high heels to gaudily painted transvestites to the "Christmas-tree man," whose head, coat, shut and pants are festooned with tinsel and trinkets. Snaking stealthily through this Brueghelian scene in search of likely prey are a host of Manhattan's pickpockets, strong-arm muggers, and flimflam artists, as well as an occasional rapist.

In an effort to fight these worms eating at the core of the Big Apple, merchants, theater owners and the New York Times, which is located just off the square, put up $15,000 for the TV monitors. Similar systems have been tried in other U.S. cities with varying success. If the setup works in Times Square, TV cameras may be installed in other crime-infested areas of the city.

The system will be put to a severe test on New Year's Eve, when tens of thousands of people will collect in and around Times Square to watch the lighted white ball drop from the Allied Chemical Tower at midnight. The presence of so many potential victims attracts a swarm of predators every year.

For the monitoring cops, Times Square will be an action-packed late late show.

The police rely on the camera device mainly to deter crime. They advertise the fact that it is in operation, and passers-by are welcome to come into the mobile home and take a look. The men on duty will demonstrate to visitors how the system works and even go to the extent of showing the locations of the camera. Criminals have got the word. At least some of them are staying out of range of the big eye, but jittery merchants feel that it is too early to tell if the cameras will do much to clean up the neighborhood. The police admit that some crime inevitably escapes their watchful eye; there are too many shadows on the screens, especially at night. To date, the cameras have enabled them to arrest six miscreants: two pickpockets, two muggers, a flimflam player and a character who was swinging an ax at passersby.

For the most part, the surveillance of Times Square is routine, as the cops try to keep borderline crime under control. The police log on one evening read, in part: "N/W corner 44th & B'way--camera picked up crowd and man dressed in black clothing. Upon investigation revealed minister preaching. Subject was advised of the procedure to follow in order to conduct such gathering ... Observed a derelict intoxicated --sleeping at island at B'way & 44th St. Disposition: Awakened subject & sent him on his way."

The system could be made more efficient, police say, by switching to color TV for a better picture, putting in zoom lenses and using video tape so that a record of a crime could be produced in court. Even in their unimproved state, the cameras have aroused the fears of the ever vigilant American Civil Liberties Union, which is hypersensitive to any possible infringement of civil liberties caused by police innovation. "Once you make a jump from a patrolman to technical devices," says Barbara Shack, assistant director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, "you're very much on the way to 1984."

Acknowledging that there is a potential for abuse in any surveillance system, Ted Howard, senior planner of the Office of Midtown Planning and Development, suggests that crime has abridged the civil liberties of those who want to go to Times Square. "Most people I've talked to don't mind the cameras out there because they feel a little safer," says he.

Big Brother, in fact, is very brotherly and accessible. People stop by the Times Square trailer to get information or pick up maps and brochures about the city. One evening, Patrolman Ray tried to talk the ubiquitous Mrs. Kearns into going to a nice, clean place like the "Y" for a good night's sleep. She replied that she prefered to remain among her friends at Times Square. So Ray took her out a cup of coffee. "I kinda got a thing about her," he says.

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