CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Jack La Torre is a 20-year veteran of the New York City Police Department assigned to the 66th Precinct in Brooklyn, where he serves as a lieutenant. He recently spoke at a monthly meeting of the Bay Ridge Historical Society at the Community Room of the Shore Hill Towers at 91st Street and Shore Road.

When the station house where Mr. La Torre works was renovated earlier this year, files from a half-century-old homicide case captured his attention.

The material related to the unsolved – and closed – case of the murder of Arnold Schuster, who was gunned down in Brooklyn on March 8, 1952. Schuster, a clothing salesman, spotted infamous bank robber Willie Sutton on a subway car and followed the suspect after he left the train at Pacific Street on February 18 of that year. Schuster tipped off police, which led to Sutton’s arrest. Within a month, the 24-year-old was dead from four gunshot wounds.

Mr. La Torre brought a large display including photos and newspapers. The New York World-Telegram & Sun reported a decade after the murder that there had been 1,688 investigations involving 412 law enforcement agencies, and 363 known criminals had been questioned, but the killer remained at large.

One prime suspect in the case was a bookmaker and receiver of stolen goods. The article said every one of the city’s 24,000 cops were required to carry his picture and apprehension of him surely meant “a promotion and pay raise.”

In his talk, Mr. La Torre told of similarities between himself and Schuster that led to his interest in the case. For example, Schuster served in the United States Coast Guard on a ship called the Dione from March 1946 to August 1947. Mr. La Torre has served as a Coast Guard reservist since 1987.

Mr. La Torre often commutes to work by bicycle, pedaling past 55th Street and Fifth Avenue, the location of Schuster’s father’s tailor shop. When he traverses that area, “I always think of that” case.

Bay Ridge residents and history buffs alike were intrigued by Mr. La Torre’s retelling of the facts. In the audience was Bay Ridge Historical Society President Peter Scarpa, and Lawrence Stelter, an author of a book called “By the El: Third Avenue and Its El at Mid-Century.”

Mr. La Torre read a list of how many police flocked to the scene when Schuster was murdered. The list included the police chief, several other high-ranking officers, and 75 detectives. “Can you imagine how crowded it was on 45th street that night?” An audience member said he remembered a policeman standing in front of Schuster’s father’s tailor shop for quite some time.

The Bay Ridge Historical Society’s upcoming events include a talk by brew master Garrett Oliver on October 20 on the decline of the brewing industry in Brooklyn and its recent revival, and on November 17, author Stan Fischler will read from his new book ” “The Subway and the City: Celebrating a Century”(Frank Merriwell Incorporated).On December 15, Jean Youla will speak about restoring 346 Van Sicklen St., a house within the old village of Gravesend that dates to the 1860s and still retains the family crest of the home’s original owner.

***

SOCIAL CRITICS

The Knickerbocker earlier reported that the New School University is hosting a conference December 3 on trenchant social critic Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), whose now well-known concepts such as “conspicuous consumption” have entered the vocabulary.

But uptown at Columbia the legacy of another biting critic is to be examined. Essayist Randolph Bourne (1886-1918), who graduated from Columbia College in 1912 and earned a master’s degree there in 1913, will be discussed at an all-day conference on October 11.

Co-sponsored by the National Arts Journalism Program and the Program in American Studies at Columbia University, the event will examine the life and work of this remarkable figure who, while at the college, was influenced by philosophical pragmatist John Dewey, anthropologist Franz Boas, and historian Charles Beard.

Columbia University sociologist Todd Gitlin and George Packer, who writes for the New Yorker and Mother Jones, are among those who will partake in discussions.

Bourne’s most famous line was “War is the health of the state.”

***

COMING ‘RIGHT’ UP

Author and National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., whose most recent book is “Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography” (Regnery), is slated to appear Thursday at 1 p.m. at Barnes & Noble Rockefeller Center at 600 Fifth Ave. Tomorrow he will address members of the

Women’s National Republican Club. The book comes with a CD, with selections read by William F. Buckley and an introduction by Walter Cronkite.

***

NEWS NOTES

Dan Rather may be preoccupied, but journalist Ken Auletta is scheduled to moderate “The Campaign and Network News,” a panel with three network news anchors – Mr. Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings – as part of the New Yorker Festival.