"[Austin Street residents] tell of many angry cries in the night, of lovers' quarrels, of drunken brawls along the street, of noisy teenagers. . . . "You get used to it after a while," a businessman says. "You get conditioned. So when you hear a cry, you figure it's just another drunk or a teenager raising hell. How can you pick one noise out of a hundred and know this time it's murder?"

Edward Weiland,  "Austin Street Can't Forget an Unheeded Cry in the Night," The Long Island Press, p. 5, March 28, 1964. [Bracketed text is mine.]

[Ed.'s Note: Teenagers interviewed for this same article strongly denied that any of them were ever on the streets at 3 A.M.]

"It must be pointed out that there are several bars in the neighborhood, and that late-night and early-morning noise are part of the scenery."

John Melia, "Stigma from Genovese case remains," The New York Daily News, [Queens Edition] Col. 3 (Month and day not known, 1984). [PDF Format - 230 KB]

"Miss Hartmann says that the street outside her [Mowbray] apartment has always been noisy after midnight with people leaving the area bars. She said that in the early morning hours of March 13, 1964 the running and screams she heard didn't sound any different than usual. . . . 'So many, many times in the night I heard screaming.'"

Genovese Horror Lingers," Newsday, p. 17 (March 11, 1984). [Bracketed text is mine.]

"The stabbing occurred in front of a bar known to produce loud conflicts on weekend nights, often between friends or lovers."

Kostya Kennedy, "Kitty Genovese: 30 Years Later," The Queens Tribune, p. 14 (March 17, 1994).

"'The media never took into consideration the noise from the bar, that we had a different clientele then - women yelling at their husbands' said Tony Corrado, who in 1964 owned a furniture shop on the block of Austin Street where the killing occurred."

Joe Sexton, "A Request Revives Passions in the Kitty Genovese Case," The New York Times, p. B4 (July 25, 1995).

"Tragically, the bar was shuttered early because a new bartender was on duty. He had closed the bar before midnight because there had been fighting among patrons, a common occurrence that neighbors constantly complained about."

Howard Girsky, "Kitty Genovese Killer Seeks Freedom - Controversy Still Haunts 37-Year-Old Murder Case," The Queens Courier (Dec. 21 - 26, 2001).